


Hesperos

by BenSomeday



Series: A Twisted Time-Travel AU [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Anakin Skywalker has no chill, Ben is trying to have chill, Ben just needed his grandma, F/M, Padmé has that effect on people, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, To be fair Rey has no chill either
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:00:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 56,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24781204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BenSomeday/pseuds/BenSomeday
Summary: A Twisted Time-Travel AU
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: A Twisted Time-Travel AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1815751
Comments: 178
Kudos: 272





	1. Chapter 1: Adrift While Standing Still

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written a fan fiction in over a decade.
> 
> It's been more than twice that since I wrote anything Star Wars related. I'm talking, AOL, Geo Cities and Dial-Up were the height of the internet at the time.
> 
> I can no longer ignore my inner muse. Dozens of stories are begging to be written, so I decided to start with this one. Not Beta'd so read at your own risk. I will update as often as I can.
> 
> Hope you enjoy.

**Chapter 1: Adrift While Standing Still**

  
  


**The Finalizer; Approximately 7 Months After the Battle of Crait**

It was truly pathetic. If Kylo hadn’known any better, he would think that Generals Hux, Sloane and Quinn wanted to be caught. They were so very obvious in their scheming; group-huddles out in the open, sneers leveled at his back as he walked away, the blatant undertone of disrespect in every uttered, “Yes, Supreme Leader”. It was more concerning than amusing. After all, these were some of Snoke’s most trusted and loyal and yet they were too stupid to see that their efforts to hide their mutenous plans were failing miserably. And Kylo knew. He knew that they were trying to hide their conspiring; a simple skim over the minds of Sloane and Quinn made that very clear. 

Hux though, Hux was used to having Snoke in his head and so, even without a touch of Force sensitivity, he knew what a simple brush against his mind felt like. No, with Hux, Kylo waited until the man was at his most vulnerable. He waited until the 96 hour shifts and gnawing hunger of the general’s gut forced the man to take to his quarters and actually eat and sleep. Then, and only then, did Kylo look.

Hux believed himself, unsurprisingly, the rightful heir to Snoke’s throne. Rather than find such a notion amusing, or even worrying, Kylo found himself mostly indifferent to Hux’s dreams of grandeur. If only to free himself from having to deal with the idiots that seemed to make up the vast majority of the First Order’s command, he would almost be willing at this point to hand the title of Supreme Leader over to the red-head. He truly would, if it were not for the fact that Kylo knew Hux jerked himself to the thought of a galaxy full of Star-Killer Bases.

_That_ thought _did_ affect Kylo. He remembered, all too well, the wrenching, gut churning agony of billions of life-forces crying out at once just before being silenced forever.

It was not an experience he desired to have again.

Sensing that the three wayward generals were coming to an important decision about...something...Kylo chose that moment to step fully onto the command deck and clear his throat.

“Report, Hux,” the Supreme Leader said lowly, his vexation with the conniving general distorting his voice more than his mask ever had.

Had he not been watching the coward so closely, Kylo might have missed the minute stiffening of Hux’s spine and he thought to himself how unexpected it was that a man as uptight as Hux could possibly go even more rigid.

Hux turned on his heel, executing a military turn as precise as Kylo had ever seen. Inwardly, he smirked to himself, enjoying the fact that Hux, with all of his bravado when Snoke still lived, could now barely look him in the eye as he responded. It made the general’s scheming suddenly seem much more amusing. How could a man presume to assassinate an enemy he feared to face head-on?

“Current course set for Naboo, per your orders Supreme Leader. ETA - 39 standard hours.” The general answered stiffly as his co-conspirators slinked away.

Kylo held his gaze on Hux - waiting, waiting - until the general locked reluctant eyes with him. This time, Kylo smirked openly, just a shift of his lips that had Hux swiftly moving his eyes away, his throat working to bury the scathing retort for the Supreme Leader that lay on the tip of his tongue. Kylo yearned for the day that Hux betrayed himself and said what he really thought, out loud, for all to hear.

_“I will enjoy teaching him a lesson in respect,”_ Kylo thought.

“Report to me once we break atmo,” Kylo said aloud, finally, and left the command deck, heading for his rooms.

He tried, yet again, to avoid looking at it as he passed, but his eyes betrayed him. Instinctively, they set themselves on the small, almost hidden panel in the wall of the ship. His thoughts slid into a memory; a little boy, sitting on his father’s knee as the man regaled him, for what had to be the hundredth time, with the story of his parents’ and uncle’s almost-laughable escape from a different star destroyer.

Kylo shoved the memories away and continued on, angry with himself upon realizing he had come to a stand-still in the corridor, staring at the garbage-shoot.

The piercing pain in his chest was much more difficult to dislodge.

Once inside his personal quarters, Kylo stripped his cloak, boots and armor from his body on the way to the refresher. Gently, more gently than he had deposited anything else, Kylo lay his saber on the stand next to his bed, fingers stroking over the hilt not in reverence, but in a shadow of penance he did not want to examine too closely. 

His eyes pinched closed, breath escaping in a waver, then he turned, intending on a shower before meditation.

***

**D’Qar**

_Reach out. Feel. Reach out. Feel._

Rey shifted her body in discomfort, the bark of the fallen tree she sat upon digging into her butt. That wasn’t the most annoying thing about her failing attempts to meditate but she refused to acknowledge that the noise of her fellow Resistance fighters - scrambling to-and-fro just meters away - were what was really bothering her. She was doing just fine. Fine with the noise, fine with the chaos, fine with the people...the _overwhelming amount of people_ …

_Kriff._

“Honestly, Leia, I’m perfectly fine,” Rey insisted, ignoring the knowing look on the elder woman’s face. She continued in as sure and authoritative a tone as she could muster, “I’m adapting. That’s what scavengers do; we adapt.”

General Organa’s lips quirked, so familiarly, so like a man she had thought she knew, that Rey felt the breath steal from her lungs. She turned away, banishing the thought before it could take root. Repositioning herself, she again closed her eyes and concentrated. 

_Reach out. Feel. Reach out. Feel._

The mantra repeated in her mind, first in Luke’s voice, then in her own.

_Reach out. Feel. Reach…_

A crash and shouting from the hanger split through her internal mantra and Rey groaned in frustration. She opened her eyes again, intending to bestow a withering glare upon the deceptively diminutive woman who was standing patiently before her. The amusement in Leia’s soft eyes made Rey’s nose twitch.

“Having difficulty concentrating. Easily frustrated. Snipping at your friends and glaring at our new recruits.” Leia intoned, listing Rey’s shortcomings as though they were symptoms of some horrid disease. She sighed, coming to sit next to Rey on the fallen tree that lay at the edge of the base proper. “Rey, you are used to being alone. You are used to quiet, save for the noise of your own mind. I know you are trying. I do. But there are dozens upon dozens of beings here, more every day as our numbers are replenished, and you, my dear, appear to be nearing a break that could well end with an overly-friendly pilot or two with busted noses and black eyes.” 

Rey stifled a grin when Leia’s eyebrow rose in a suggestive quirk that the woman must have stolen from her late husband. The smile easily fell the next moment and her stomach clenched. Even now, nearly a year after her escape from Jakku, Rey still felt the whisper of the life of loneliness she thought she had left behind. Even here, surrounded by so many people who were ready and willing to fight for a cause they all believed in, Rey felt separate. She was the Last Jedi, capital letters and all. She should have been able to blend in, become part of the whole. Instead, the overly-familiar comradery of the other Resistance members grated on her nerves and left her skin itching, as though it could not bear the mere touch of a friendly pat to the arm.

She had been on the receiving end of far too many of those lately. The innocent touches only served to bring to mind another touch, _another’s touch_. The only touch that she truly wanted and that had been so cruelly made impossible by the very same man who’s touch she desired.

The dull ache that had resided in her since that night flared and she grieved, again, for the man that had made her _feel_ , like no one else ever had.

She knew that her words to Ben Solo that night on Ach-To had been made untrue. She hadn’t known true loneliness then. She had not yet had a taste of real connection, of like-souls coming together. But now…after Ben. After the Supremacy...

She could not tell Leia. She could not tell Finn or Rose or Jessika or Poe. They wouldn’t understand. They would ask questions; questions that Rey knew she dare not answer.

Rey sighed, giving in as both she and Leia had known she eventually would. “Fine then, what would you have me do?”

***

**The Finalizer**

Kylo hesitated over the crystal reliquary, letting the Force flow through and around him, before releasing the latch and allowing the cylinder to open. The smog of icy mist cleared and there, nestled atop a layer of ash, lay the helmet of Darth Vader.

Kylo gingerly lowered his shaking hand, as he had, every day, since the death of Snoke. He breathed deeply - in and out, in and out - and rested the tips of his gloved fingers on the charred remains of the Dark, familial relic. Once again, he beseeched his grandfather to come to him, to advise him, to answer his call. Once again, he received no reply.

Hearing nothing, again and again, was only cementing what Kylo now feared to be true; it had never been his grandfather speaking to him. It had never been his grandfather who purred in his mind, praise for following in his footsteps. It had never been his grandfather who had filled his inner vision with the trappings of untold glory, should he succeed in taking power where Darth Vader had not. No, the only voice he had heard, the only words spoken to him - as a lonely child, as a frightened teen, as a conflicted adult - had come from his cruel and deceptive master.

Snoke had been the only voice inside his head.

Kylo recoiled, an excruciating misery seeping into his bones.

“Please,” a trembling whisper released into the universe, “please come to me. Please!”

Kylo felt the darkness, born from fear, born from pain, rising in him. His pull on the Force was nearly suffocating, his wretchedness laid heavy to bear in the plaintive cries that fell from his lips.

“Please!”

He released his anger in a spiral of power so fierce, he began to drown in it, the tide of grief a torment upon his battered soul and still he called out to the man whose memory he had spent so long exalting, a man whose legacy he had tried desperately to uphold.

“Please! Come to me!” One last, devastated, anguished filled cry wretched from him and, for a moment, all went silent.

The last thing Kylo knew was a torrent of blinding, blistering Light erupting from deep inside himself, so deep, he had not even known it was there.

Then, he fainted.

***

**D’Qar**

Rey slowed the land speeder as she approached the hills crudely marked on the map Leia had scratched out for her on a piece of worn Bantha-hide.

“There is a system of caves, about a two days’ ride from the base,” Leia had said, “there, you will find the quiet and solitude you need and yet you will still be close enough that, when you need to, it will not be so difficult to return to us.”

The hills were unlike anything she had ever seen; covered in a spongy moss and crowned by massive trees so tall she could not see their end no matter how she squinted her eyes. The hills, and the caves she could now see they housed, were like something out of a holo-story meant for children. She felt a bit like a child herself, giggling in a wholly un-Rey-like way, and scrambled down from the speeder to take a closer look.

The air, the ground, even the smell of fresh and _green_ , it all felt heavier here, more visceral than anything…

No, not anything. Ach-To had felt like this. 

The Force was strong here, as it had been on the island. It was a heavy blanket that felt almost too burdensome over her weary shoulders. But, it was quiet and she was alone and for that, she would bear the unnerving feeling that, perhaps, the Force was more corporal here than she might want.

Several hours later, after choosing a cave and stowing her supplies and taking a short but needed nap, Rey decided to train.

Though she and Leia both had tried to fix it, it seemed that the crystal of Anakin Skywalker was well and truly unusable. Thus, the Legacy saber was still broken and so Rey took up her staff.

Bend. Thrust. Jump, bend, thrust, kick. Twist, bend, twist again, kick, thrust, parry.

Sweat gathered along her neck, under her breast-band and between her legs. It trickled in steady but slow rivets down her temple and spine. Her muscles burned, her joints ached.

And still, she trained, using the physical in an attempt to block out the mental. But it didn’t work.

_Who are_ **_you_ ** _to claim the title Last Jedi? You are no Jedi! You cannot even repair your saber! Can you even call it_ **_your saber_ ** _? Did you not steal it or do you actually think that it called to you?_

_You, a scavenger!_

The last thought came to her in the deep, husky voice of _Kylo Ren_. A memory on top of memories that left her shouting to the unseen tree-tops in aggravation.

She needed to meditate.

Dropping her staff to the living carpet below, Rey plopped down on the ground, crossed her legs and closed her eyes. She reached, steadily, for the Light.

_Breathe. Breathe. Breathe._

The deeper she dove into meditation, the deeper into her own memories she fell. The sounds of the forest gave way to a rainstorm. The soft moss below became unyielding stone. The gentle breeze on her skin transformed into shivers banked by warm firelight.

_“I’ve never felt so alone.”_

_“You’re not alone.”_

Rey gasped. She knew she was crying but could not pull herself from her meditation to stop the tears streaming down her face.

_“You’re not alone.”_

Lies!

_“You’re not alone.”_

Every word, a lie!

_“You’re not alone.”_

Stop!

_“You’re not alone.”_

“Please,” she whispered, “Be with me. Please.”

The Light, blinding in its intensity already, grew and grew, surrounding every point in her mind until everything stopped. There was no sound, no movement.

Then a rush of Darkness, inky and thick as the sap of a Wroshyr tree rose up from deep within her, a tidal wave, cresting over and swallowing the Light, bearing down on her from all sides.

Then, she fainted.

***

**Naboo; Three Years After the First Battle of Geonosis**

“I just don’t understand why you think you have to take this risk!”

Padme closed her eyes for a moment, pulling in a quick breath, tinted with the scent of Rominaria flowers. She opened her eyes again, focusing on the glint of the sun on the water just beyond the balcony on which she stood. Gentle waves below soothed her irritation at her husband’s understandable but still wholly unacceptable outburst.

She turned to him, “Ani, this is a risk I must take,” she said softly and approached him slowly, “because if I do not go to Coruscant and meet with the trade ministers, I will be showing the enemies of the Senate that they can manipulate us using fear and threats.” 

She came to stand before him, reaching out to take Anakin’s hands into hers. “My love, I must do this. I cannot be seen as weak when, already, so many of the Senate have made talk of bowing down to the demands of the Confederacy, if only to stop the violence.”

Anakin sighed. His eyes darted to the side and his shoulders slumped in defeat. Even before Padme finished speaking, he knew any argument he came up with would be easily defeated by her infuriating ability to manipulate his thinking by speaking word to truth alone.

“I cannot lose you, Padme,” he sighed into her ear as he pulled her closer, into his arms.

Padme returned the embrace, resting her cheek against her husband’s chest.

“And I cannot turn my back on the duty I swore to uphold,” she replied, “I must meet with the trade ministers or, I fear, they will take the offers from the Confederacy and we will lose the largest and most expansive supply lines that connect us to our allies in the Western Reaches.” She pulled back and looked up at Anakin. Gifting him a smile, she told him, “Obi-Wan has already cleared you to be my escort and guard for this mission. I will not be alone. I will have you.”

Anakin breathed a sigh of relief and embraced his wife once again, briefly, before moving away and, with a smirk tossed her way said, “well then, what are we waiting for, Senator?”

Padme shook her head fondly. With one last glance at the water, she took a step to follow Anakin outside to the waiting land-speeder that would take them back to Theed. She had hardly moved when she stumbled and cried out in shock, the ground trembling beneath her feet.

“Anakin! What...what is this?” A look up at Anakin told her that he was just as stunned as her. Another shockwave rolled through the stone beneath her. She gasped, in horror, as a blinding light and overwhelming darkness seemed to seep out of the very air around them, enveloping them both and blocking each other from view.

“Padme!” She heard Anakin yell before she lost her sight completely and then, her consciousness.


	2. Chapter 2: A Stranger Well Met, Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo can't stop losing himself in memories but he makes a rather decent host, considering the circumstances.
> 
> He is a prince after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still haven't figured out how to get the mood boards I made for each chapter to show up. It is quite frustrating. I am posting them to my twitter though BenSomeday @AmyForNow

**The Finalizer; Approximately 7 Months After the Battle of Crait**

Kylo wondered if he was dead. He felt like he might be dead. His body ached in a way he had never known before, his insides feeling as though they had been pulled from him, twisted unnaturally, and then deposited in the wrong locations inside his body. And _his head_ . _Oh his head!_ The pain bordered on nauseating and he feared he might empty his stomach, were there anything in his stomach to empty it of. Reaching out with the Force in an attempt to discern what had happened, Kylo froze.

There was someone in the room with him.

Cautiously, Kylo prodded at the being’s mind, searching for their identity. He failed. Though he knew in his gut that the being was not Force sensitive, something was blocking him from being able to enter their thoughts. Irritated, he peeled one eye open. His gaze landed on a lump swathed in fine fabrics, lying about a meter away, mostly in the shadows, and unmoving. He sat up, stomach still rolling uncomfortably.

In a move he would deny ever making as Supreme Leader, Kylo scooched across the floor using his rear and his legs to move, toward the figure in black and green, worried that if he tried to stand the spinning in his head would tumble him to the ground. The closer he got, the clearer the person became. A human woman, no doubt, with dark hair, just a shade or so lighter than his own. She was rather small from the looks of it, though her extravagant, and obviously expensive, gown and cloak added some bulk. She was breathing, which Kylo was surprised to find a relief. He reached out to touch her on the arm when suddenly, she moved, quicker than he might have expected from an obviously gentile creature, and snagged his wrist in her small hand. Her grip was strong and sure and Kylo felt an immediate wave of respect for this woman.

“Who are you? Where am I?” The woman asked, her accent turning her otherwise harsh words delicate.

“I am the Supreme Leader, madam,” Kylo responded, voice wavering slightly from the nausea still fighting to control his stomach and he wished, for the first time in months, that he still had his helmet, “and you are aboard my command ship, _The Finalizer_.”

Kylo could tell his answer had thrown her. She mouthed the words, _Supreme Leader_ , confusion marring her brow.

“Supreme Leader of what, exactly,” the woman questioned, slowly, as though the words did not want to spill from her tongue.

Kylo raised an eyebrow.

“Why, the galaxy, of course,” he said haughtily, ever the son of a princess, however he tried to deny it. He watched as horror washed over her face.

“The _galaxy_ ,” she exclaimed, finally releasing him and shooting to her feet. She backed away from him until she hit the doors concealing his wardrobe and could go no further. “What do you mean? Who are you really? Have you kidnapped me? Are you with the Confederacy?”

The woman straightened and her expression became stern, sure.

“You tell whomever it is you are working for that abducting a Senator will do your cause no favors,” she said, voice icy but controlled.

Eerily, it reminded Kylo of his mother.

He cocked his head at her statement and stood, taking one step, then another, closer to her.

“The Confederacy? _Senator_?” He whispered in disbelief. Louder, he asked, “Senator of which planet, exactly?”

The woman’s eyes narrowed. She seemed to be trying to determine if Kyo was asking because he wanted to hear her confirm an identity he already knew or if he really didn’t know who she was. Kylo decided to answer the unspoken question for her.

“Madam, I assure you, I have no idea who you are and I am asking out of genuine curiosity. You claim to be a member of the Senate. You accuse me of being with, what was it? Ah, The Confederacy.” Kylo bent at the waist and looked her dead in the eye. “Tell me who you are, so I can tell you that both of those things are not only preposterous, they are impossible.”

The woman sucked in a breath at his commanding tone. This was a woman used to giving orders, not taking them. Once again, she threw her shoulders back and stood as tall as her tiny frame could manage.

“I am Padmé Amidala, Senator of Naboo,” she proclaimed.

“Amidala?” Memories stirred and Kylo nodded. “Ah, yes, I seem to remember learning something about a Senator Amidala as a child.”

It was his last tutor, before he was sent to Luke. The tutor droid, QS-53, had been teaching a young Ben Solo about the Galactic Senate and the lead up to the Clone Wars. QS had been describing the factions within the Senate over the war and what was to be done. A young Senator from Naboo, and once their Queen, had stood in defence of peaceful resolution.

Ben never got to hear anything more on Senator Amidala. At the moment QS started reciting a speech the Senator had delivered to her fellow officials, Leia Organa had come home and, upon hearing what the tutor droid had been teaching her son, put an end to the lesson. The next time he sat down with QS, he asked the droid to tell him more about Amidala but the droid had apologized and replied that he was not to speak that name again, by orders of Senator Organa.

Kylo had wondered, at the time, why his mother did not want him to learn about this woman but had forgotten all about it in the intervening years. Now though, faced with the possibility that this woman was who she said she was, he wished he had probed deeper, worked harder, to find out why Padmé Amidala was persona-non-grata in his household and by his own mother’s orders. Just who was she, to have made his fierce and fearless mother so unnerved?

“What do you mean, you learned of me as a child?” She asked.

Kylo could see that, though she was made of sterner stuff than most, the situation was beginning to wear on her nerves. Deciding it would be best to simply speak word to the truth, as it were, he stepped back and voiced a command to his room’s central control.

“System, respond, what is the current standard year.”

Padmé’s face went slack, briefly, in surprise and then all expression left her eyes, as though she expected some sort of trick.

“Current date,” the central control’s mechanized voice rang out, “34 ABY.”

It was there, though she made not a sound at the proclamation, in her widening eyes and the minute jerk to her shoulders. Shock.

“What is that?” Padmé demanded, “ABY? What does that mean?”

Ah. Yes of course. She wouldn’t know.

“That, madam, means _After the Battle of Yavin_ ,” Kylo said, moving further away, toward the food replicator. He had felt a niggling of hunger from the Force and decided to yield to it, if only to give himself a moment to collect himself. “And your time is now called BBY, _Before the Battle of Yavin_.”

Padmé ducked her chin toward her chest. Kylo could almost see the gears in her head turning furiously as she processed what he had just told her.

“Then,” she began, disbelief striking a jagged line against the softness of her regal accent, “you are saying,” she stopped to take a shaky breath, “I have moved _forward_ , in _time_?”

Kylo selected a Nyork Chowder from the menu on the replicator’s small screen, as it was one of the few traditional cuisines from Naboo with which he had any familiarity.

“That is correct,” he said.

He stood back and waited for the replicator to finish and then brought the small bowl to his, admittedly, oft-ignored dining table. He gestured to the seat and nodded toward the bowl, indicating that the meal was for his guest.

Ah. Perhaps not the best word to use at the moment. The last time he had, had a... _guest…_

_Well then._

Padmé ignored the stew and drew to pacing frantically in Kylo’s quarters. Her steps made no sound against the durasteel floor and Kylo would have bet his best battle jerkin that her feet were clad in dainty slippers, better suited for the ballroom than a battleship.

“That cannot be,” she whispered, then, louder, “that simply cannot be! I am to be in Coruscant in 96 hours to meet with the trade ministers of the Tashor Sector!”

Kylo flinched at that. The Western Reaches. Home to several planets and chief among them, Jakku. Kylo knew that, so far as history went, the supply lines to the Jakku system had been lost to the Senate in approximately 19 BBY. After that, the system had been left to flounder, eventually overrun by the crime syndicates before the Empire took an interest in rumors that some of their enemies had established holdouts there; enemies that would turn out to be the infancy of the Rebellion. The entire system, what was left of it once the Empire was done, was a cesspool of poverty and crime. It was what Re...the Scavenger, had grown up knowing: cruelty and hunger and despair.

“Sir,” Padmé’s commanding tone brought Kylo out of his musings, “I simply cannot believe that I have, have somehow _travelled forward in time!_ It is not possible.”

There. She said it, so it _must_ be so. _Kriff_ this woman reminded him far too much of his mother.

Kylo waved away the thoughts of General Organa as though they were so much smoke. He gestured, again, to the bowl on the table. Apparently, he had judged the faint whisper of the Force correctly as she eventually capitulated and sat down.

“It isn’t poisoned, if that is what concerns you,” Kylo said after a few moments of watching her sit motionless.

Padmé scrunched her nose in an entirely too familiar way, “ _just like Rey”_ , he thought, and Kylo turned to look past her and out of the viewport at the far end of the room. He heard the skim of the spoon against the bowl and felt satisfaction that she was finally eating roll through him.

They stayed quiet for several minutes as Padmé devoured the Nyork Chowder, daintily sipping at it and betraying her palatial upbringing. It brought to mind the many lessons Kylo himself had, had as a child with the etiquette droids his mother often left him with. How to eat, how to walk, how to sit and dance and laugh. How to speak in a manner both commanding and inspiring of respect. His mother had made sure he was raised with the education of a prince, no matter he was a prince of a dead world.

A beep interrupted the quiet just as Kylo felt the tale-tell swoop of the ship coming out of hyperspace.

“Supreme Leader,” Hux’s grating tone rang through the room, setting Kylo’s teeth to grinding, “we have reached atmo just above the planet.”

Kylo reached over and pressed the button to open his end of the comm line back to the command deck.

“Prepare my shuttle,” he snapped and then laid his eyes upon Padmé, who looked back with curiosity. Curiosity, but no fear. “I will take my personal guards only, no Troopers,” he finished, coming to a decision.

The silence lasted a beat too long to be respectful and then Hux replied, nasally voice betraying his sneer, “as you _wish_ , Supreme Leader.”

Padmé tilted her head at him and then gave a small smile.

“Whoever that was, I don’t think he likes you very much.”

Kylo barked out a laugh, surprising them both.

“No. No, he does not like me very much at all, Senator,” Kylo replied, “but he currently has the loyalty of too many of my other commanders, and a good majority of my army. I cannot be rid of him.” He paused, then smirked. “Yet.”

Padmé seemed to consider this for a moment. “And why would he be part of your command to begin with, if you do not trust him, nor he you?”

Kylo worked his mouth for a moment, weighing his next words.

“My position is,” he stopped, considering, “inherited, you might say.”

Padmé blinked at him. “You mean, your father, or mother, has died and you have taken over?”

Kylo’s chest ached; a blow to the chest from a bow-caster would have been less painful. He ignored it, as best he could. As he always did.

“No.” He said. “My.” His voice cracked. “My...my Master.” The words finally left his throat, heavy and unmistakable in their meaning.

Padmé stood slowly, and backed away from him.

“Your Master?” She asked. “You mean, you were a slave?”

They both knew that was not what he meant. He did not respond but he did hold her eyes with his own, refusing to be cowed.

Padmé swallowed, obviously and loudly. “You are a _Sith_?”

It was a question, yes, but one she likely felt she knew the answer to already. It was due to this surety that his response left her noticeably unbalanced.

“No. I am not a Sith. While it is true that I walk on the Dark side of the Force and my saber _is_ red, I am _not_ a Sith.”

“I don’t understand,” Padmé replied, “how can you use the Dark side of the Force and _not_ be a Sith? There are only 2 paths, are there not? The Light and the Dark; the Jedi and the Sith.”

Kylo raged inside, hearing echos of Skywalker in Padmé’s statement but he settled quickly. This woman was not a Force-sensative. She was from a time when such ideals were common knowledge and to be angry with her over her ignorance would do neither of them any good.

Kylo turned and drew his cloak around his shoulders and called his saber to him before clipping it to his belt. He looked up at Padmé and said, “I will explain it to you on the way. Come, we need to go.”

He placed his hand near, but not on, her elbow and began to lead her to the door. She stopped and yanked her arm away from him.

“I am not going anywhere with you!” She snapped, finally showing a measure of fear.

Kylo bore down on her, backing her slowly toward the doors.

“You will," he growled, "because if you do not and you are discovered - by _anyone_ but especially by Hux - you will be in a danger far beyond any you could _possibly_ imagine, _Senator."_

Padmé snorted and Kylo blinked, not expecting a sound like that from a woman of her breeding. She leaned up and into his space.

“You would be surprised the kinds of dangers I have faced, Supreme Leader whatever your name is, I have...”

“Kylo,” he interrupted, “Kylo Ren.”

Padmé snorted again. “I don’t know which is more ridiculous, the fact that you have a moniker like _Supreme Leader_ ,” she chortled, “or that your _name_ is Kylo Ren.”

_“Well,”_ Kylo thought, _“that’s just rude.”_

Aloud, he said, “regardless, you need to stay with me if you want to ensure that your pretty head stays attached to your pretty neck. Make no mistake, Hux is dangerous, even without the Force, and I do not trust that he will not attempt to gain entry to my quarters the moment I am off this ship. You cannot stay here.”

She nodded at then but the mischievous look in her eye made him pause. “And how are you planning on explaining my presence when we walk out of here, for all and sundry to rest their eyes upon?” She batted her eyelashes at him, mocking him, “or is it common-place for you to escort strange women, who have seemingly appeared out of nowhere, from your quarters?”

Her tone made it apparent she thought that implausible. Kylo was no ladies man, nor did he pretend to be, and she knew it. He worked his jaw, thinking, then turned her. He pulled the hood of her black cloak over her head and down far enough to conceal her face, then twisted and tied the fabric near her middle until it hid her green gown. Satisfied, he stepped back to take her in.

“There,” he nodded, “now you could pass for a Priestess of the Force.”

Padmé flung her head back and the hood flopped down along her back again. She raised an eyebrow at him, expression dubious. “Priestess of the Force,” she dead-panned.

“Yes,” Kylo huffed, “Hux and the rest of command are morons when it comes to the Force but, though I am sure he was full of bantha-shit, my former Master Snoke mentioned consulting with the Priestesses of the Force often enough that they will have no trouble believing this. As far as they will know, you are able to manifest yourself wherever, whenever and however you wish.” He finished triumphantly, looking at her with what he was disturbed to realize was a very Han Solo-like smugness.

_Kriff_ . The last day or so, his emotions had been bandied about by memories, that _stupid mask_ and now a woman who had seemingly stepped through time. He did _not_ need to think about either of his parents right now. He had far too much to worry about with Hux dogging him from the shadows, biding his time, and Senator-peace-nik glued to him for the foreseeable future.

Padmé blinked at him, as though dumbfounded. Throwing her hands up, and ruining Kylo’s work on her cloak, she turned toward the door, muttering about ridiculous Force-users and how she shouldn’t have to put up with such nonsense, even when so far from home. That last word made her breath catch and, just before the door whooshed open, Kylo thought he heard her whisper, “Ani”. 

Whatever melancholy had fallen over her, she seemed to shake off and they exited the room together, moving toward the hanger.


	3. Chapter 3: A Stranger Well Met, Part II

**Unknown**

The first thing Rey noticed when she regained consciousness was the smell. Where the forest that she had passed out in had been rich with the scent of trees and moss, now, there was an overwhelming sterilized quality to the air, much like a starship. She rolled over onto her back, landing atop her staff. Though she hadn’t yet opened her eyes, she could tell that she was no longer in the forest. There was too much light bleeding through her closed lids and she was most certainly lying on a floor and not the ground near her cave. Giving in to the inevitable, she opened her eyes and sat up.

Everything...was white. Really white. The walls and floor gleamed with it. The small table, the bench it set next to, even the light fixtures along the walls, everything was white.

_“This must be hell to keep clean,”_ was Rey’s first thought. Her second was, _“where in the kriff am I?”_

She heard a moan behind her and leapt to her feet, calling her staff to hand. A man was lying just a few meters away, dressed in what almost looked like the robes Luke had seemed to favor, though this man wore mostly black where Luke had swaddled himself in beige and brown. Rey walked closer and stopped a few feet away, waiting. The man was coming back to himself and she watched him open his eyes, brow wrinkling in confusion. Less than a quarter of a parsec later, he jolted up with a strangled cry.

“Padmé!” The man scrambled to his feet, nearly losing his balance and holding his head as though in pain. It was only then that Rey realized she had a pounding headache. She ignored it as best she could and reached out a cautious hand toward the stranger. 

“Are you all right?” She asked and the man turned to her in alarm.

His eyes narrowed further and he stood to his full height, apparently deciding to disregard the pain in his own head.

“Where is Padmé? What have you done with her?” He took a step toward her, reaching for the saber she could now see attached to his belt and hidden, mostly, by his leather, front-split tabard.

“I don’t know who Padmé is,” Rey took a small step back, then another, “but there is no reason to draw your weapon. I’m not your enemy, I don’t even know who you are.”

The man seemed to consider this reasonable enough to move his hand away from his saber but Rey could feel him prodding at her mind, searching for maleficence.

“Stop that,” she snapped, shoving him away from her thoughts, “I don’t like people going into my head.”

The man seemed shocked, at first, then contemplative.

“Are you a Jedi?” He asked. His eyes trailed over her, expression dubious. “You don’t have a lightsaber.”

Rey rolled her eyes. “I am without one, at the moment. The one I was using was destroyed during battle.” Before giving him a chance to chastise her over the loss of her weapon, as she could tell he was prepared to do, Rey asked him a question, “Were you one of Master Skywalker’s students?”

The man jolted as the question, blue eyes growing wide. “Master Skywalker?” He whispered.

Rey nodded, sure that his reaction confirmed her suspicions. “Yes,” she answered, then continued, gentling her tone, “You felt it then, didn’t you, when he...when he passed into the Force?”

_That_ seemed to throw him even more and Rey worried that she had been wrong and this man had _not_ known that his former master had died.

His response rasped out, slow and thick, as though he wasn’t quite sure how to say what he wanted. “Master Skywalker is dead? How? When?”

Rey sighed, feeling echoes of the man’s pain and confusion. “About 7 months ago. He died while trying to buy the Resistance time to get away from the First Order. Away from…” She trailed off, unable to refer to Ben as the Supreme Leader or by his chosen name.

Confusion, anger, fear and a host of other emotions passed over his face at the news. The man slumped down onto the bench behind him, head in his hands. Rey could hear him muttering to himself but could not make out any of the words.

“Are you alright?” She asked him, again, concerned by the emotions she could feel emanating from him. “What is your name? I’m Rey.” And, hoping to head off what was the usual question when she introduced herself, “Um, just Rey, no family name.”

The man looked up at her at that. He opened his mouth, then closed it, several times. It was as though he didn’t know how to answer such a simple question. His expression went from bewildered to calculating in the blink of an eye before settling on something close to friendly. Finally, he said, “You may call me Ani, Rey.”

Rey smiled, deciding to file away for later the instinct that told her not to trust this man completely. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Ani. Now,” she turned, one hand on her hip, the other still loosely gripping her staff, “do you happen to know where we are, because I haven’t got a clue.”

Ani shook his head, stood, and joined her near the center of the room they were in. While she studied the room she pretended not to notice that he was studying her. Spying a com panel on the far wall, she walked to it, hoping it would open a door so she could escape from this white that had become obnoxiously oppressive. She pressed what she thought might be the release button for a portal and was rewarded when a part of the wall to her left wooshed open. She turned back to Ani.

“Come on,” she tilted her head toward the exit, “let’s get out of here and try to figure out where we are.” 

Rey peeked around the edge of the door and then stepped out into the hall. Amusement threatened a grin to her mouth when she realized the entirety of the building they had found themselves in was likely all white, just like the room in which they had awoken. It was almost dizzying, attempting to traverse the all white corridor and she felt as though she had stepped into a maze. She could tell Ani was having a bit of an easier time; he was reaching out with the Force to help steady his senses. Rey took the silent, un-intentional advice, and reached out as well. Behind her, Ani cleared his throat.

“You are very strong in the Force,” he whispered, his deep voice almost too soft to hear, “strong, but not yet fully trained.”

Deciding that was a conversation she would rather not have now, or ever really, Rey remained silent. She did not trust this strange man who was almost certainly lying about his identity. It had taken him far too long to respond to her when she asked his name and the shrewd look in his eyes when he did respond made her think that he was most likely playing some sort of angle.

To what end, she had yet to figure out.

Briefly, Rey wondered if he might have been one of the students that had left with Kylo Ren, the night the temple had burned. She glanced behind her, appearing to check that he was still following, but actually taking measure of his age. No, he was not much older than her. It was highly unlikely he would have been one of the students that had joined Ben that night. Perhaps...Rey furrowed her brow...perhaps she had been completely wrong. If he had been too young to have joined those that destroyed Luke’s temple, he would have more than likely been killed with the rest. After all, Luke had said all of the other students had died. Which made it even more likely that he had not been Luke’s student at all. He had never affirmed it and Rey wondered just what his reaction to her first mention of Skywalker actually meant.

“We should probably keep to the walls,” she said quietly, angling her chin back so Ani could hear her even with her trying to keep quiet, “I think…”

A muffled but unmistakable series of cries made her breath catch and she stopped walking. She and Ani looked at one another, then he cocked his head pointedly in the direction from which the cries had emanated. Rey nodded and they continued on toward the noise. They reached a split in the corridor and Ani put his arm out, keeping her back and a little behind him as he peeked around the corner. Rey was equal parts amused and irritated at his protective gesture but both emotions were quickly dispelled when she spied the shoulder plate of his armor that was now visible, his cloak having fallen back when he raised his arm.

The symbol of the Jedi Order. The same symbol she had seen in holos scavenged from the wreckage of the large Imperial ships that graced the Jakku desert. This was the symbol worn by all of the Jedi that had fought in the _Clone Wars_.

Rey knew that Ani had felt her heart rate increase but, as he made no mention of it, she figured he had chalked it up to her trepidation over their situation. She was disquieted, to be certain, though more at her realization about him than anything else. This man was not from her time. She knew this, with startling clarity, and the Force had seemed to swell at the thought. A Force user who appeared to know _a_ Skywalker, even if it might not be the one she had originally presumed - Luke had not even been born until after the Clone Wars had ended after all - and who wore the armor of a Clone Wars era Jedi Knight.

Yes, this man was most certainly out of time here. Which begged a whole series of new questions, along with the original concerns that had been bouncing around in her head since she woke up: where was here, how did they get here, who was he, really, and, most importantly she thought, if he did not know Luke Skywalker, why had that name evoked the reactions he had had to it?

Rey could only think of one Skywalker that had been alive during the Clone Wars and if this man knew him, she needed to be very careful from here-on out about anything and everything she revealed. At least until she was able to get the truth of his identity from him.

“There are Clone Troopers just down the hall. I will identify myself to them and we can find out where we are,” Ani said.

Rey looked around the corner, just as Ani began to move and quickly snatched the sleeve of his tunic and pulled him back.

“No,” she hissed, “they are not the Troopers you know. Those are Storm Troopers, Ani, they are no friends of ours.” She shushed him when he opened his mouth, no doubt with a retort that would be condescending, based on the haughtiness she could feel around him in the Force. “Ani, you...you are from the time of the Clone Wars, are you not?”

Ani’s mouth dropped open and he pitched away from her. His eyes narrowed.

“That...is an interesting question, Rey,” he said, eying her, “from the wording, I take it the Clone Wars are not a...current event?”

Rey shook her head.

“How long,” Ani asked, “How long has it been since the Clone Wars?”

Rey took a deep breath. She released it slowly and took a moment to think. How much did she reveal? Deciding to be frank, Rey replied, “Depending on what stage of the Clones Wars you were engaged in before...before you indeed up here, approximately 55 years between that time and mine now.”

Ani slumped against the wall, eyes sliding closed. Rey had a feeling she had just confirmed, rather than revealed, to him that he was not in his own time.

“That...would make me rather old right now,” he chuckled. Then he looked at her in alarm. “How did you know? About me? How did you know I wasn't from this time?”

Rey gestured to his armor. “The symbol on your shoulder plate. I recognized it from...from historical holos I have seen.”

“Historical holos,” Ani muttered with a small, disbelieving laugh. “So, these Troopers are enemies?”

“They are,” Rey nodded, “I...I don’t know what or how much it is safe to reveal. I have never dealt with time-travel before.” She looked away from him, furrowing her brow in contemplation. When she looked back at Ani, she continued, “let’s just say that, at some point, the Clone Troopers were turned into Storm Troopers and they work for a very evil organization.”

Ani nodded, slowly. He looked like he was trying to work out a puzzle for whicht he already held some of the pieces but was still missing others.

The cries of pain once again echoed down the hall.

“Well,” Ani said, straightening back up to his full height, “if those Troopers are our enemy, whomever they are harming might well be an ally. Perhaps we should see about rescuing them.”

Rey quirked a smile and nodded in agreement and, together, they crept back over to the turn in the hall. Ani looked again at the Storm Troopers standing guard at a door about halfway down the next corridor. He glanced down at the staff Rey carried and lifted an eyebrow at her. She grinned and clutched the weapon tighter in her fist. Ani motioned to himself and the other side of the split in the hall, then to her and the spot just past the turn. Rey moved into position and, the moment Ani dashed out to the other side, she turned and stepped around the bend. Ani raised a hand and the Troopers froze in place. Using the end of her staff, Rey knocked them both out and they dragged the bodies away from the door.

Rey pressed her ear against the panel in front of her. She could hear pitiful moaning and the scrape of what she thought might be a boot dragging against the floor. She looked back at Ani for a moment and he pressed the release on the panel next to her, opening the door.

Rey stepped in, bringing her staff up quickly and assessing the room for hidden enemies. There was only one being in the room.

“He looks rather bad off,” Ani muttered, gesturing to the human man lying on a table in the center of the room.

He was on his stomach, body jerking occasionally against an invisible, or perhaps remembered, pain. His boots skid across the floor, explaining the noise Rey had heard from out in the hall.

“Come, let’s get him free of those restraints and I will work on healing the worst of his injuries,” Ani said.

Rey walked to the man’s feet while Ani positioned himself at the man’s wrists and they worked on opening the leather bindings holding him to the table. Ani finished before Rey: she realized he had once again used the Force for something she had not even considered it could be used for. She began to wonder how much training, and how comfortable one must become, to so easily and so instinctively use the Force as this man did. As Ani healed the prisoner, Rey went about procuring a cup of water from the sink that resided in a small nook carved into the wall. She brought it to the man, just as Ani was turning him over.

It took all of Rey’s self-restraint to keep from letting out a scream when the man’s face was revealed. The cup of water fell from her hand and her other hand slapped over her mouth. Her eyes watered and in the back of her mind, she knew they must have widened to an almost comical size. Reaching out, she could not deny the truth, as her senses brushed against the man’s signature in the Force.

“Rey,” Ani, concern written all over his face, moved around the table toward her and grasped her by the shoulders. Rey tore her eyes from the prone man on the table and looked at the Jedi in front of her. “Rey, what is it?”

Rey gulped. She felt her hands shake and the tears finally spill over and run down her cheeks.

“You,” she rasped, voice sounding unnatural to her own ears, “you are not the only one, out of time Ani.”

Ani’s chin tilted and lowered in an expression of caution. “What do you mean, Rey?” He glanced over his shoulder at the man lying on the table and then turned to look at her again. “Do you know him?”

Rey felt her head tip in acknowledgement before a shuddering gasp, followed by an anguished whine, escaped her lips.

“Yes,” she was crying now, “yes I know him. But,” she stopped, wiping furiously at her eyes, trying desperately to stop the flow of tears. “But when I first met him, he was much older, by at least 30 years and,” tears continued to spill from her eyes and Ani used the sleeve of his tunic to wipe them from her cheeks.

“And?” He prompted softly.

“And in my time, he is dead!” Rey sobbed.

Ani’s eyes slid closed. He turned to look at the man again. They were both quiet for several minutes, save for Rey’s sporadic hiccoughs as she tried to calm down. Finally, Ani spoke.

“Then, it would appear that I have somehow stepped forward through time, about 20 years give or take, based on what you have already told me. And you, Rey, have somehow stepped backward in time, by 30 years or so.”

The idea of it. The possibilities. Rey staggered and the notion that she could change things raced through her mind. Apparently, her thoughts were loud and clear, if not in the Force, then at least on her face, because Ani’s perpetual frown deepened exponentially.

“Rey, no,” he said, “I caution you to be careful what you say or do here. We cannot know what we might change and how that might affect your future.”

Rey let out a bitter laugh and shrugged. “Can’t see how it could be much worse than they already are, to be honest. A galaxy at war. A family for whom I care very deeply, torn apart. A man that I,” she stopped, anguish lancing through her at the thought of soft brown, fathomless eyes. “The galaxy is in tatters and billions have already been lost to evil. Really, Ani, what could we possibly do here that could make things worse?”

Ani didn’t seem to have an answer for that. _“Or,”_ Rey thought, _“he is too overwhelmed by what I just revealed about the future that he is trying to process it.”_

Rey jerked and looked back at the table when another groan sounded from that direction. Swallowing, she walked closer. The man opened his eyes, immediately locking his own with hers.

“What?” he began to put question to voice but was interrupted by a violent coughing fit.

Rey quickly returned to the sink, snatching up the fallen cup on the way, and drew him some water. She held the cup to his lips and helped him drink. He looked at her again, eyes much clearer and much more aware than they had been. The question he had attempted to ask earlier was still dancing in his eyes.

Rey gave him a shaky smile. “It’s okay, Han,” she whispered, “we’re going to get you out of here.”


	4. Chapter 4: A Leia Interlude

**D’Qar; 34 ABY**

Leia wouldn’t say something was wrong, per se, just that something wasn’t quite right.

Less than a day ago, she had felt a ripple in the Force, once that promised something very odd had happened or was going to. She had learned, long ago, that ignoring signs from the Force would do her no good and so had spent that past several hours, pondering whether to comm Rey or not.

Deciding it would be better to converse with the young Padawan than not, she moved to her desk to punch in the link code. As she entered the code, the flap to her tent was flipped open.

“Leia!” Three voices rang out, followed by a forth, out of breath. “He’s taken Rey!”

The General set her comm back on the desk and turned to where Poe, Finn, Jessika and the heavily breathing Rose were standing at the entrance to her tent.

“Explain,” she commanded, and then put her hands up as all four of them began trying to speak at once. “Let us try this again. Rose, please explain.”

The small, dark-haired woman stepped forward.

“We had contact from one of our spies on Naboo,” Rose began.

“I didn’t even know we had spies on Naboo,” Poe groused.

“Hush!” Rose snapped. She turned back to Leia. “One of our sources of information on Naboo,” she emphasized, “said that Supreme Leader Kylo Ren holo-commed them about twenty minutes ago. He was on his way to the surface. The source said that there were a few guards with him, and a woman. The source was sure she was in distress because Ren kept stepping in front of her, trying to block their view.”

Leia’s eyebrow rose.

“And what made them think that this woman is Rey?” She questioned.

“Well,” Rose wrung her hands, “they didn’t. We did. From their description. She was wearing a black cloak but the source said they could see brown hair and she was shorter than Kylo Ren…”

“Dear, everyone is shorter than him,” Leia deadpanned.

Rose nodded, “Yes, yes, I know but...who else would it be?”

That was a good question. Leia reached again for her comm. Though she tried several times, she never got a response from Rey.

“Poe, have Chewy ready the Falcon,” she said, deciding that Rey’s lack of answer and the Force ripples from earlier could not be a coincidence. “It will only take about 30 minutes to reach the hills I sent Rey to if we go in the Falcon. If she is there, no harm done...if she is not, then we must leave directly for Naboo. It is only a flight of a few hours from here so we might be able to catch them.”

One hour and no sign of Rey later, the Falcon set course for Naboo.

Leia was deeply concerned. They had found Rey’s speeder, and her cave, with relative ease. Save for her staff, nothing else was missing except Rey herself. Nothing looked disturbed and there was no sign anyone else had been there. It was as though she had vanished into thin air.

The heaviness of the Force surrounding her last known location made Leia wonder, yet again, at the connection Rey could have with her son. Though the young woman had declined to say any more than she and Ben could speak to one another through the Force, Leia knew there was something more to it.

Well, perhaps once they reached Naboo, she would learn some new truths.


	5. Chapter 5: A House Built on Fragile Bones

**Naboo; 34 ABY**

_“Naboo is a place free of the constraints of time and the changes wrought by men,”_ Padmé’s grandmother had once said.

Looking upon her home-world now, she believed it. Even with so many changes staring her in the face, Naboo was still, somehow, exactly as it was in her own time. The man beside her, though she could tell he attempted to be, was not so indifferent to the beauty rushing by them as their speeder-boat led them further from the capital and out toward the Lake Country.

During the shuttle ride from his command ship down to the planet’s surface, Kylo Ren had told Padmé a bit more about the current situation in the galaxy. His attempts to make himself, and his so-called First Order, sound like a necessary, peace-keeping entity were ridiculous at best and downright insulting at worst. If he knew anything at all about her, it was that such a government would be an affront to her democratic ideology. He had seemed to realize that Padmé would not be so easily led to believe that an organization such as the First Order was anything to be commended; he had swiftly moved on, imparting to her what he had meant by not being Sith, despite calling from the Dark side of the Force.

_“The Force is both the Light and the Dark,” Kylo had told her, “While the Sith called upon the Dark, there are other things - ideals, rituals, rules - that one must believe in and follow to be a Sith. I do not hold to many of what the Sith taught and I have never partaken in a Sith ritual. Whether my former Master was a Sith or not, I do not know. He did not train me using the Creed of the Sith, nor did he hold me to keeping the majority of their laws.”_

_Padmé supposed that made sense and the idea sparked another in her; one that could possibly be the answer when it came to her husband. He struggled, she knew very well, with staying in the Light. She did not need the Force to see it, to know that with each passing day he felt the call to the Dark. He was, as she saw it, not made to be a Jedi. Padmé wondered if it might be possible Anakin could be something else._

_“Then,” she said, studying him, “While the Jedi may be compelled by their very Creed and rules to call upon the Light, that does not necessarily mean one must be a Jedi if it is the Light side of the Force they draw from, correct? Could one, potentially, be able to walk in both the Light and the Dark and not fall to evil?”_

_Kylo, she could plainly see, was dumbfounded. Comprehension overtook contemplation which transformed into cautious hope. Padmé had seen hope dawn in people’s eyes often enough to recognize it immediately. It made her wonder if any actual Force-user had never thought of such a path themselves. They both remained quiet for the rest of the trip to the planet surface, each deeply mired in their own thoughts._

After nearly an hour of travel, Kylo shifted in his seat and looked at Padmé.

“You have not asked why we are here or where we are headed,” he said, his voice deep and almost soothing.

Padmé graced him a smile. “I must admit that I am curious. It would seem that Naboo is still, as it has always tried to be, a Neutral planet. Though you were certainly not welcomed in traditional Naboo hospitality, neither were you accosted. You were quite ready to leave the capitol, however, and so I must presume that you have no interest in bringing Naboo under First Order control. I wonder, then, just what is it that has drawn you here?”

Kylo worked his mouth, as Padmé had come to realize he did when parsing out what he wished to say. This was a man who was no stranger to deep reflection. He was also, Padmé had noticed, well educated, well-mannered and graceful in a lumbering way (for all his awkwardness). Padmé wondered just what this man’s story was.

“There is, I have been led to believe, an artifact of great importance hidden here on Naboo. I have come to claim it, as it is rightfully mine by the very nature of inheritance.” Kylo said, shifting in his seat like a boy, waiting to be scolded by his mother. “I believe it holds information regarding...regarding an ancestor whose life’s-purpose is of great importance to my own mission as Supreme Leader.”

Padmé parsed through this explanation, sifting through the stilted words and looking for anything that might help elucidate more about Kylo’s motivations as the leader of the First Order. She began with the most obvious conclusion.

“An ancestor?” She asked, leaning on him for more information before she settled on her interpretation. “One recent or more in the distant past?”

Kylo fidgeted, clearly uncomfortable. “I am not sure how much to tell you, to be honest, seeing as you…” he paused to study her. Seemingly deciding to take the risk, he continued, “seeing as you are from the same time-period in which he lived and that means you might have known him. Though, honestly, it is still a very, very slim possibility. He was a Jedi and you a Senator. It would be a remarkable coincidence if you happened to know my grandfather.”

Padmé froze. His grandfather was a Jedi? Who lived when she did? A Jedi who had, had at least one child that was this man’s parent? Jedi were to have no such relations. Did that mean that Ani was not the only one to break their oath or, did it mean...

Surely he was correct. Surely it was simply an odd coincidence. 

She was saved from responding when the droid piloting their speeder announced their imminent arrival at their destination. Her stomach swooped when she laid eyes on the massive complex. No, perhaps it was no coincidence. This would certainly be too much. She glanced over at Kylo and she wondered.

“You are likely familiar with this estate. I understand it has belonged to the Naberrie family for several generations,” Kylo informed her, unaware of the irony of doing so. “Though I am not sure why my grandfather would hide an artifact of his here, when he had no known connection to the Naberrie’s, I cannot deny it is one of the last places anyone would expect something of Darth Vader’s to be.”

Padmé felt sick. Her voice trembled as she spoke. “Darth Vader? That was your grandfather’s name? Or,” she looked up at Kylo, unwanted comprehension filling her, “that was his Sith name, wasn’t it?”

Kylo mashed his lips together before a sharp “Yes” escaped, then he strode up the stairs and onto the veranda of Varykino.

Padmé followed slowly, traversing the well-known, well-loved steps of her family estate. Her finger-tips skimmed lightly over the banister, tracing the familiar edges and drawing from memory the thousand other times she had done so before. They passed through the wide-open balcony doors and into the solarium. Yet even in this, the very place she had found and committed herself to all-encompassing love, she felt hollow and defeated. If her conclusions were correct, and she felt it in her bones that they were, her husband fell to the Darkness. Anakin became a monster and re-named himself Darth Vader. And where was she when all of this was happening?

“What of your grandmother?” The question aired itself before she had time to judge the wisdom of asking it.

Kylo halted, just inside the library doors. The inquiry was clearly not one he was expecting, looking stunned before his brow furrowed.

“I...I don’t know,” he admitted, “I do not know who she was or where she went after my grandfather became Darth Vader, or even before that, I suppose. I do not even know her name.”

Padmé felt righteous indignation rise in her. He knew nothing about her? Because, truly, by this point she had accepted what had to be true and the hurt that her child had never mentioned her to this man, her grandson, lanced through her.

“I see,” she said, stepping around him and into the library, “how sad.”

When she looked back to see why Kylo had not continued into the room, she found him looking at her in that way of his again; like he was trying to parse out a puzzle and was swiftly fitting the pieces into place.

“Do you have any children?” He asked.

It made Padmé wonder if he was not beginning to realize what she herself now knew to be true. She gave him a small smile.

“I do not, not yet, but there is hope that I might be a mother, someday,” she said.

Kylo dipped his head in acknowledgement, then spoke again.

“Speaking of grandmothers…” he stopped, unsure, then said, haltingly, “I know someone...she does not know who her parents are. She is an orphan.”

While Padmé found that very sad, she wondered at this near non sequitur.

“Her accent, it is almost identical to yours,” he continued, “and though she is taller than you, by quite a few inches, her hair is of similar shade and…” he trailed off, chewing the inside of his mouth, “you are both highly stubborn and,” he gave a self-deprecating laugh, “you are both quite frightening when you are angry.”

Ah. Padmé understood. Kylo thought that she was related to this woman he knew. He thought she might be the woman’s grandmother. It was quite a leap. Similar traits not-withstanding, there did not appear to be any sort of connection between her and this woman that should have led to such a deduction. She decided to find out more about this woman and who she was to Kylo.

“Is she one of your First Order people? A commander or other officer?” She asked, attempting to appear only slightly interested by focusing her eyes on the books lining the shelves in front of her instead of the brooding man across the room.

At that, Kylo did laugh; a booming, rusty thing. It was the kind of laugh one might expect from someone who did not often have occasion to do so, sounding all at once irrepressible and woefully unused. He shook his head at her, a lop-sided grin taking over and making him appear far younger than he had previously.

“No,” he said to her, finally stepping into the room and heading toward the window seat along the west wall, “No, Rey would never…” his steps faltered and his tone turned melancholy, then he clenched his fists, “Rey and I are...on opposite sides of this war. She is…”

He was quiet for far too long.

“Your enemy?” Padmé supplied. 

“No!” Kylo shouted, rounding on her. His pale face shaded red, his chest heaved, and anger and sadness warred in his eyes. “No, she is not my enemy. She is always with me. I can always feel her with me. Even now, even...even if we are apart. Rey is...” Kylo choked on his words, eyes closing, fists still curled and tense at his sides.

Padmé abandoned her perusal of the tomes and moved closer to Kylo. Just as she did with Ani when his emotions threatened to overwhelm him, she took Kylo’s hands in her own, squeezing gently.

“You love her,” she smiled at him and reached up to move a lock of his hair away from his eyes and tucked it behind his adorably large ears. He did not seem to notice, his eyes on her, captivated. “You love this woman, Rey, don’t you dear one?”

Padmé couldn’t help it; not the gentle way she touched him or her soft tone or the affectionate endearment. It did not seem to matter. This man, she could tell -and oh how the thought pained her - this man was unused to kindness, starved of affection, and he drank up everything she was giving him, greedily. She laid her hand on his cheek and his head dipped into the hold, seemingly of its own accord.

“Will you tell me more, later, “she asked, “about this Rey who has enchanted you so? I think I should like to know everything you are willing to share with me.”

Kylo nodded, dazed, and Padmé stepped back. He nearly did not allow her to let go on his hand but eventually released it, blushing and looking away.

“Now, about this artifact of yours,” Padmé said, hoping to draw his attention away from her odd behavior just now and his own embarrassment.

Kylo cleared his throat and turned once more to the window bench, kneeling down and running his fingers along the underside of the cushioned seat.

“There should be some sort of latch or trigger,” he murmured, “my source said that Vader had created a secret compartment and used it to hide a holocron. I believe it may contain some of his memories.”

Padmé was not surprised. Anakin had, jokingly she thought, mentioned once that this very bench would be a perfect secret hiding place for treasure. She knelt as well and began to search but her thoughts were focussed on other matters.

She was plagued with doubt, anger. What had led Kylo to become the man he was now? Where were his parents, one of whom was her own child? Why did being the recipient of kindness and tenderness seem so foreign to him? Was that because of his parents? Others? If it was his parents, what kind of person was her child that they did not shower their own child with love? What kind of mother was _she_ ? What kind of child did _she_ raise?

Another thought struck her. Did she even raise her child? With Anakin falling to the Dark, what happened to her? She knew she wouldn’t have joined him and Kylo made no mention of such a scenario. Did she...did she run away or, perhaps, _die_? Did she leave behind her child to be raised by others? Would those people have told the child the truth or would they have hidden their parentage from them? No one knew about her marriage to Anakin, though she thought that Obi-Wan was starting to suspect. How would it be possible for anyone to know that Anakin was the child’s father but not know she was their mother?

Padmé was at a loss.

“Your...father..was the son of Darth Vader?” She probed, looking for more information.

Kylo’s shoulders twitched and he snorted.

“No,” he said, his voice twisting with disgust, though it sounded quite forced, “my father was a swindler and a smuggler. He cared more for his blasted ship than he ever did about his family.”

Padmé did not care for his answer, not because of the words themselves but because it almost sounded like he was trying to convince himself that his words were true. Perhaps this was not the full, or even partial, truth.

“Your mother then,” she said. Flutterbees erupted in her stomach at the thought of having a daughter. “Was she a smuggler too?”

That same booming, raw laugh sounded again and Padmé waited patiently for Kylo to regain control of himself.

Bitterly, he replied, “Imagine, the _princess_ , a _smuggler_!” He laughed again. “Oh I think I might have preferred that to the truth.”

Padmé cocked her head. _Princess?_ Aloud, she put voice to her question, “She is a princess? Of what people?”

Kylo shook his head; lowly, he proclaimed, “A dead people.” Padmé’s stomach _rolled_ . Just what did _that_ mean? But Kylo continued, “Leia Organa: Adopted princess of Alderaan, elected youngest Senator in history, turned Rebellion leader then General, wife of Han Solo, named Chief of State of the New Republic, revealed as the daughter of Lord Vader and driven from office, now leader of the Resistance...and my mother.” He closed his eyes. “Though I am sure she wishes that she weren’t; the daughter of Vader nor the mother to... _me_.”

Though she desperately wanted to tell Kylo that couldn’t be true, she needed a moment to process what he had told her. So, then. Bail had adopted her daughter. That made some sense. Senator Organa was a close ally and trusted friend. He and his wife would have gladly taken her child in. She could only hazard a guess as to why he would not tell her daughter, Leia, about her. Perhaps Anakin’s fall to Darkness and rise as Darth Vader had something to do with it. Had Anakin even known about their child? And he had called the people of Alderaan a “dead people”. She shivered at the implications. 

Padmé looked at Kylo.

“While I am sure you have very valid reasons for believing that your mother,” she swallowed, then forced the bitter words out, “does not want you, I do not believe that makes you unworthy of being loved, Kylo.”

There it was. She had struck a nerve, so on point that his whole body went rigid.

“You do not know the things that I have done,” he countered. “I assure you, the General has every reason to want nothing to do with me.”

Padmé did not ask him to reveal the things he had done. His tone, his grief, was explanation enough for now.

She continued to run her fingers along the wood paneling of the window seat. Reaching the end, her hand slid back and around. She felt a catch, just along the trim where the bench met the wall. She pressed in and a click broke the silence that had fallen over the room.

“You found it,” Kylo breathed, moving down to where she sat. He reached out and pushed, lightly on the panel at the end of the bench. The panel popped out and he reached in, drawing his arm back to reveal his hand clutching an object wrapped in bright blue cloth. It took a moment but she could not deny the clench in her heart when she realized that the cloth was a shawl, one that she wore frequently and that Anakin seemed to favor on her.

Kylo removed the wrap, carefully, revealing a cone-shaped object of metal and clear glass.

“This is the holocron?” She asked him. “And it holds your grandfather’s memories?”

Kylo nodded, distracted and staring at the object as though it could be the answer to every question he had ever had.

“How does it work?” Padmé asked.

Kylo opened his mouth to respond, but shouts from Kylo’s guards outside the house caught their attention. A few moments of blaster fire and then quiet. They both stood, Kylo placing the holocron and shawl in his cloak before sweeping his arm out and tucking Padmé behind him. Clumsily, she pulled the hood of her cloak up over her head; not knowing who was here, it was better to reclaim the role Kylo had given her as a priestess than to potentially make herself a target.

She peeked around his large frame and watched as a small group of people, four with blasters at the ready, entered the room. They were led by an older, elegantly dressed woman whose hair was pinned up in what Padmé recognized as traditional Alderaanian braids. This woman, somehow, felt familiar. She waited for Kylo to say something, do something, but the older woman spoke first.

“Ben,” she said, voice heavy with fatigue, “we know you have Rey. Please, let her go.”

Ben?

Padmé glanced at Kylo. His jaw was clenched and he looked more frustrated than angry.

“That is not my name anymore. Ben Solo is dead,” Kylo growled. “And I don’t know why you think the scavenger is with me, unless,” he smirked, “you’ve lost your precious Jedi.”

The older woman sighed, as though expecting such from Kylo. She shook her head and looked back up, into Kylo’s eyes.

“No, Ben Solo is not dead. _My son_ is not dead.” She proclaimed. “I know now what Rey meant when she insisted that I not lose hope. I can feel it, the Light in you. It is still there and even stronger than the last time we encountered one another; you remember, don’t you, during the First Order’s attack on the Raddus?” She stepped forward, to the apparent irritation of a few of her companions. “You had orders to kill me, but you could not do it. I felt it then and I feel it now. Please, Ben, please. Let Rey go and come home.”

During her speech, Padmé had moved, not of her own accord. Once the woman declared herself Kylo’s - Ben’s - mother, Padmé was entranced. She stepped around Ben and lowered her hood. The woman glanced over to her, likely expecting to see Rey, and fell backward in shock.

“Leia!” One of her companions cried. A curly-haired young man reached out to catch her and the darker man next to him grabbed his blaster so his companion would be able to support her. The two younger women with them, both with dark hair and one much shorter than the other, also reached out to the older woman, attempting to help.

Leia shooed them all away, her eyes never leaving Padmé.

“What is this?” She whispered. “What in the name of the Force is going on? How is she here?”

Kylo - no _Ben_ \- looked confused and turned to look at Padmé. She felt his gaze on her but did not break eye contact with Leia.

“It would seem the Force has brought me here,” Padmé began and reached out to lay her hand on Ben’s arm, “because _he needs me_.”

Leia’s astonished expression grew before she tilted her head, looking almost pensive. The two women studied one another. Padmé, for all she was angry at the thought that her grandson truly believed his mother, this woman, did not love or want him, she could not ignore the flutter in her heart nor the tears that breached her eyes at seeing her daughter; a daughter that she would never get to know.

“Perhaps you are right,” Leia nodded at her, “perhaps you are here to correct my failings.”

Padmé could feel the tremors in Ben’s frame where she had hold on his arm. He was starting to fall apart. It was clear that this meeting between Ben and Leia was the first in a long time. The way that he looked at her - lost, desperate, guilty - broke Padmé’s heart. It seemed as though he could hardly look at his mother and yet was unable to look away at the same time. She stepped over and placed herself between mother and son, facing Ben. She took his face into her hands and made him look at her. He was gasping, tears in his eyes. He tried to look away from her but she would not let him hide his shame or his pain.

“Darling one,” she said softly, “I do not know what happened to you. I do not know what kind of childhood you had or what kind of parents you had.” Ben’s eyes clenched closed. “But I do know this, you are loved. Your mother? The first thing she did when she walked into this room was claim you as her own. The very first thing she did was say the name of her son! There _is_ love there.”

Ben tried to back away from her, arguments falling from his lips. “No, I told you, you do not know the things I have done. You...you don’t know, Padmé, who I...” A few tears escaped and traced down his cheeks.

“Ben,” Leia walked closer. “I know I was not the mother I should have been. I put my duties...no, my desires to see the New Republic grow ever stronger, over you. Too many times, I left you. Too many times, I forced you to seek comfort elsewhere. I know now, that I was wrong, especially for sending you to Luke. I thought he could help, at the time, now...now I just don’t know.”

Ben moved forward, forcing Padmé to step to the side.

“Help? _Luke? Help me?_ ” He recoiled, voice rising in panic. At Padmé’s hand resting once again on his arm, he quieted though his tone held just as much fear. “Was he _helping_ me by treating me more harshly than all of the other students? When he held me to a standard far above anyone else? Did he help me as he turned away from me, time and time again, when I went to him seeking explanation for the Dark voices in my head, for my _nightmares_?” Ben’s breathing was coming out so harshly now, “It didn’t matter how often or how publicly he pushed me away, how sternly he treated me, the whispers were the same. The other students were always going to think Luke favored me! He should have stopped trying to appear neutral and just...just loved me as an uncle should!”

Ben closed his eyes.

“And that night, in the midst of the worst nightmare to date, when the Force cried out to me, screaming at me that I was in danger?” Ben looked his mother in the eye. “When I awoke, to find Luke standing in my hut, saber drawn and lit, ready to strike me down...was he helping me then, _mother_?”

Leia grew pale with disbelief. Her expression twisted into righteous fury.

“ _Luke did what?_ ” She snarled.

Ben opened his mouth to respond but suddenly, the ground began to shake. Padmé clutched his sleeve in an attempt not to fall and he grabbed her by the shoulder in return. The world went blindingly white, then darker than the coldest reaches of space, and all went quiet.

When Padmé opened her eyes, she knew three things: one, Ben was still with her, stock still and apparently in shock, two, they were no longer on Naboo but on what appeared to be an old freighter, and three, she was looking at Leia but this version was much, much younger.

“Well,” the younger Leia snapped, “are you two going to claim to be time-travelers, too?”


	6. Chapter 6: The Man in the Mirror

**Cloud City; Approximately 03 ABY**

Anakin helped Rey lift the prisoner they had freed and stooped to loop one of the man’s arms around his neck. The man, Han, Rey had called him, stumbled as he tried to gain his footing. His head lulled and his breathing was swift and shallow.

“We need to find a ship and get him away from this place,” Rey said.

Anakin was not sure how they would manage that when they didn’t even know what kind of facility they were in but didn’t argue. There were many questions begging to trip from his tongue but he thought he should save them for later. Right now, they needed to help Han and get somewhere safe.

As much as Anakin, Jedi Knight and Clone Wars General, preferred to handle things on his own, he knew he needed Rey. Whereas she at least had some knowledge of this time, he was walking blind. He needed her help if he was going to figure out what the kriff was going on. She had already proven to be intelligent and also a woman of action. Those were qualities he greatly valued in allies.

Han grunted between them as they began to move him out of the interrogation room and down the hall.

“No,” he slurred, “‘Eia, n ‘Ewy, w’ ha’ ta…” he tapered off, still attempting to regain full consciousness.

Rey stopped, forcing Anakin to halt as well. She turned her head swiftly to look at Han, a strange light in her eyes.

“Leia and Chewy?” She said, excitement coloring her tone. “They’re here?”

Han rolled his head over and opened one eye to look at Rey.

“Yeah,” he grunted, “what? Ya know ‘em?” His words came out a touch more clearly than before.

Rey looked at Anakin, as if unsure how to answer and seeking guidance from him. Anakin shrugged. Rey looked back at Han and, in a fashion Anakin began to suspect was her way when she didn’t want to talk about something, avoided answering entirely.

“Do you know where they are? Are they prisoners too?” Rey asked.

Anakin reached out in the Force, searching for more beings. Catching on two located a corridor and three rooms away, he motioned at his companions. He ignored the strange feeling he got from one of the Force signatures, confused as to why it would feel at once so familiar and so foreign, and focused on the matter at hand.

“I feel two beings in a room down that way,” He said, pointing through another corridor, “shall we give it a shot?” Rey and Han both nodded, decisively in Rey’s case and sluggishly in Han’s. At that, Anakin nudged them to turn and said, “They aren’t far, let’s go.”

It took nearly ten minutes to make what should have been a walk of less than three, the two force users having to support the tall, heavy Han between them the whole way. When they reached the door to the cell in which the others were being kept, Rey released her hold on Han, trusting Anakin to keep him upright. She opened the door and the three stumbled inside.

“Han!” A woman cried out, rushing over to him and taking him gently into her arms. Together, she helped Anakin and Rey lower Han to a bench along the wall. “Oh, Han. What did he do to you?”

The woman looked up at Rey and Anakin.

“And just who are you two?” She asked, voice stern and commanding.

“Leia,” Rey seemed to breathe the name, awe in every syllable.

The woman furrowed her brow. “Do I know you?”

Rey seemed to come back to herself at that and, with a guilty glance at Anakin, said, “No, sorry. I just...I have a lot of respect for you. That’s all.”

Leia seemed surprised by the confession but quickly rallied herself.

“I see, well, I take it that means you are at least sympathetic to the Rebellion?”

Anakin did not even finish processing the question before Rey blurted out an eager, “Yes!” He raised an eyebrow at her and Rey tossed him a grin.

Anakin studied Leia as she and Rey went about helping Han to sit up. She was...there was something familiar about her. Something almost…

“Ani!” Rey’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts and he realized she must have been calling him for a few minutes. He looked at her, brow raised in question.

Rey rolled her eyes at him and said, “Han’s ship is here, just off the north end of the building. Chewy said he can lead us out. Leia and Han will follow him. I will take the rear and you take the lead with Chewy. Keep your senses spread in case there are more Storm Troopers. Right now, you and I are the only ones with weapons.”

Before Anakin could respond, the door to the little cell slid open. A man in a blue surcoat and cape entered, hands held up in supplication. Leia leapt to her feet, reaching for a blaster at her hip only to remember it wasn’t there. Chewy roared in anger, stepping toward the man. He backed up and motioned for the Wookie to stop.

“I saw those two, “he nodded at first Rey and then Anakin, “rescue Han. I don’t know who you are or how you got in here but...thank you.”

“Thank you? Really.” Leai smeared. “You’re the reason we are in this mess to begin with! Han trusted you and you led him to the gallows!”

“Leia,” Han said softly, “He must have had no choice. Kriff, Vader and his Troopers were already here when we landed. He must have somehow figured out we would come here.”

“Han is right,” Rey chimed in, “but it is neither here nor there. Right now, we need to escape.” She turned to the newcomer. “Lando, please show us the way out. Oh! And return Leia, Chewy and Han’s things to them, if you please.”

With that, she walked over to the door, apparently placing herself in charge. Anakin was amused to see Han, Lando, Chewy and Leia all looking at her as though she was out of her mind. Well, what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

Probably.

“Well,” Lando clapped his hands, “Never let it be said that Lando Calrisson does not know when to follow the orders of a pretty young lady.” He turned, swagger in his step, and followed Rey out into the hall.

The motley crew moved swiftly through the compound, meeting only a cleaning droid on the way. Anakin was becoming more and more disturbed by the things he was feeling in the Force. First Leia’s signature in the Force, and now, another, coming closer every moment; he knew them, and yet he did not.

The group rounded another bend and abruptly halted.

“Luke,” Leia cried out, rushing to hug a young man that stood in the doorway they had been heading toward.

“Leia! Han, Chewy!” The young man called back. “Are you alright? All of you? He asked, looking them over.

Luke, as it were, was the other Force signature he had felt. Now, with them together, he realized that they were siblings, twins.

“Master Luke!” Rey called, cringing when she realized what she had just said.

As one, the others turned to look at her. Luke raised a disbelieving eyebrow at Rey and cleared his throat nervously.

“Ah, hello,” he said to her, then looked at Anakin and Lando before looking back at Rey, “did...I’m sorry, did you just call me Master?”

Rey twisted her hands nervously. She glanced over at Anakin, seemingly for assistance. Instead of offering any, he simply crossed his arm over his chest and gave her a look that he hoped was scolding. Rey rolled her eyes at him and huffed.

“Fine then, since I can’t seem to keep my big mouth shut, “she twirled and faced the others once more. “My name is Rey, that is Ani, and we’ve time-travelled here. I know you from,” she made a vague and not at all helpful gesture with her hands, “I know you all when you’re...older.”

Seemingly as one, they blinked.

Han broke the silence, “Wait a minute kid, you mean to tell me that you two are from the future?” He scoffed.

“Well, no. I mean, yes, I’m from the future but not Ani, he’s from the past, err, the past further back than this,” Rey rambled.

“Right…” Han said slowly. “Okay, then. Well, thank you for your help but...we need to be going.” He thumbed at the door behind him, walking backward, and using his other arm to gesture that the others should get the kriff away from her.

Anakin could see a ship docked there and hoped, desperately, that it was not the ship that they were to use to escape. It looked like a piece of junk.

“No, wait” Luke said, stepping closer to Anakin and Rey. He squinted his eyes as though trying to concentrate, the look rather comical, “I...I think I believe her. It just, something just...it feels  _ right _ .”

Anakin wondered if Luke was aware that it was the Force urging him to trust Rey. The kid, and Leia too, though not to the same extent, was Force sensitive. Anakin wondered why he did not have a Padawan braid in his hair. He was about the right age.

“Fine, great, can we get going?” Leia snapped. Clearly, she was on edge, but she was right, they needed to leave. Anakin could feel something approaching. Something very Dark and very dangerous.

The group moved out onto the docking line and Anakin stopped.

“Please tell me that is not the ship we are escaping in,” he said. The freighter looked like it would fall apart before it even broke atmo. Anakin had flown all manner of ships in his day, in all manner of conditions, and a derelict-looking ship shouldn’t make him cringe but this thing…

“She may not look like much,” Rey said over Han’s indignant squawk, “but she’s the fastest ship in the galaxy. The  _ Millennium Falcon _ did the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.”

“ _ It was twe _ ...wait a minute. You said twelve!” Han looked around, smug smirk warring with shock on his face, “She said twelve!”

“Of course I said twelve,” Rey huffed, but her own smirk gave away her amusement and Anakin wondered if he might be witnessing some inside joke, “It was twelve. Come on!”

She started running down the dock line toward the freighter. Anakin followed and, from his place at the back of the group, heard Han say, “Well yeah, but everyone always says fourteen!” To which Rey replied with a snort, “Well everyone is an idiot then, aren’t they.” Anakin had a feeling that this little exchange was endearing Rey to Han like nothing else in the galaxy would have. A peek over at the twins nearly made him laugh. Leia looked suspicious and rather put out and poor Luke just looked severely confused.

Rey and Han were the first ones to the Falcon. They ran up the loading ramp and Han yelled back at Chewy to take to the gunnery. Leia and Lando followed them, with Lando shouting orders into a comm. Whoever he was speaking to, he was telling them to evacuate the compound; Cloud City, he called it. Luke made it up the ramp to the end but stopped. He looked back and his eyes met Anakin’s.

“Well?” He questioned, “Are you coming? What’s the hold...”

Anakin was frozen and from the widening of Luke’s eyes, he had noticed what the Jedi had. The Darkness he had felt approaching was upon them and the Force signature it carried was both unmistakable and impossible.

Anakin stumbled back, turning wildly and reaching for his saber.

“Kriff!” He heard the shout behind him. It sounded like Rey.

“Ani no!” It  _ was  _ Rey. She was calling him but he could not answer.

The Darkness was just beyond the docking bay doors. Soon, they opened and a  _ monster _ \- carrying Anakin’s own Force signature, twisted by Darkness - stepped through. The figure in black marched stiffly down the dock line, toward him. He drew a saber from his belt and ignited it. The red of the saber cut into air like a blade of blood. Anakin reeled. He ignited his own saber, the blue of it, usually so calming, doing little to combat the fear growing in his gut.

“Ani!” Rey had reached him, grabbed his arm and tried to pull him away. “I know, I know Ani.” She closed her eyes. “ _ I know Anakin _ .” She said, looking up at him, expression stern but still, somehow, kind. “You can feel it. His signature in the Force. You know who he is.”

Anakin’s head spun. He sank to one knee, prepared to empty his stomach but only wretched dry heaves, acid burning his throat.

“No,” he whispered, “No! He cannot...I cannot...why?  _ How _ ?”

The masked man moved closer, his mechanized voice sending shivers down Anakin’s spine, “I do not know what sort of trickery this is, but it will not work. The Rebellion will end, by my hand, tonight,” He raised his saber to strike.

Rey was faster. She called Anakin’s saber to her from his limp hand and met the arc of the Dark-Sider’s saber before it reached them. She pushed the man back with a blast of the Force and then sprinted at him, not letting up on the attack. She swiped at him with the saber, then moved down and around him, sweeping out a leg in the process and hitting her opponent in the back of the knee. He lost his balance, briefly, and then turned to her new position, reaching out his free hand and Anakin could tell he was going to freeze her in place but it did not work. Rey pushed back even harder and sent the man stumbling away. She leapt at him from her kneeling position on the ground, crying out and bringing her saber down with enough force to nearly knock the red saber from his hand when he went to block her. It was obvious that he had not been expecting such a bold and furious opponent in her. His mistake.

“You are strong,” the mechanized voice said, “strong but untrained. Yet your untamed anger is giving you an advantage you would otherwise not have against me. Use that anger, little one. Feel it, draw it to you, make it…”

“Shut the kriff up, you stupid Nerf-herder,” Rey snapped, “Better men than you - or, just one man really - has tried to draw me to the Dark side. It didn’t work then and it won’t now. I will use my anger, but I won’t become a slave to it.” She grinned; a toothy, feral sort of thing, “That would only make me  _ weak _ .”

Her comment seemed to hit its mark dead-on. The mask figure howled with rage and began attacking her in earnest. As much as Rey was holding her own, Anakin knew that she needed help.

“Here.” He looked over and found Luke crouched down next to him, holding out a lightsaber.  _ His  _ lightsaber. Luke chuckled. “Yeah, I saw Rey take yours and...I realized…” Luke trailed off. “Obi-Wan said this saber belonged to my father.” He paused, licking his lips. “ It belonged to  _ you _ .”

Anakin reeled. This boy was his son, which meant that Leia was his daughter. Twins! He and Padmé had twins! Then he frowned. He glanced over at the fighting pair and then back at Luke.

“Then, do you know...can you feel…” he couldn’t put to voice the question. He couldn’t bear to acknowledge it out loud.

Luke hesitated, then jerked his head in sharp acknowledgement.

“I think I knew from the moment he and I first encountered one another. Somehow,  _ I knew _ . I just…” he looked away before meeting Anakin’s eyes once more. “I just didn’t want to believe it.”

Anakin huffed out a bitter sound, so strangled it could not be considered a laugh.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I understand where you're coming from,” he replied, swallowing thickly.

Luke looked down, considering. “You know,” he said, when he finally looked up, “maybe that’s why the Force has sent you here. Maybe...maybe this is your chance to change things. Maybe this is your chance to figure out how to stop yourself from falling, from ever becoming Darth Vader.”

Darth Vader. Well, that was a Sith name if he ever heard one. It felt like ash in his mind which meant it would take like death across his tongue.

“Agh!”

Anakin and Luke looked back to the fight. Vader had Rey against the edge of the walkway. She was using the Force to keep herself from falling but this fight was taking all of her energy. She had injuries; bruises and one shallow, smoldering cut across her side, made by a lightsaber.

Anakin stood, clutching the saber Luke had given him. If this creature was him, then this was  _ his  _ fight.

He ran toward them, reaching out and forcing Vader back from Rey, allowing her to regain her footing. “Get back to the ship!” He called to her and then attacked.

He kept one eye on Rey until she, with Luke’s help, began lurching back to the  _ Falcon _ . Then, he turned all of his attention to this future version of himself. Vader circled him, saber held in a resting position at his side. His mask did not allow his expression to be known, but Anakin could feel his confusion, and his pain, as plainly as he felt his own.

“Who are you?” Vader asked. The rhythmic breathing, created by the machines he wore upon his body, was a clue that this being before him was not wholly man. Not anymore. “I can feel you, I know who you appear to be, but it is impossible.”

“I have better questions,” Anakin bit back, beginning to walk his own circle, matching his Darker self. “How did you become this Dark monster? What made you fall to the Darkness?”

Anakin waited but Vader did not seem inclined to answer him. Instead, he struck out, nearly hitting Anakin in the hip with his blade. Anakin jumped back, then used his momentum to propel himself forward and aimed a hit at Vader’s helmet. It was blocked, barely, and Anakin leapt back again, away from the fist that reached out to grab him.

“And what of Padmé?” He asked. “What of our beloved wife? What happened to her?”

The anguish that twisted through Vader made Anakin stumble. He thought about probing Vader’s mind to find the answers he sought, but refrained. This was him - a Dark, twisted version of him, yes, but him all the same - the moment he tried, he knew the shields would come down completely. It would do him no good.

“Padmé,” the name said in that monotone voice, “Padmé.”

The reminder of her had caught all of Vader’s attention. He seemed to withdraw into himself.

“What happened to her?” Anakin beseeched, needing desperately to know. It was the wrong thing to do.

Darth Vader’s fury reached new heights, as maelstrom in the Force. He attacked Anakin again, his blows stronger and fiercer, buoyed by the Darkness that swirled within him. Anakin was forced to move, now on the defensive, as blow after blow rained down on him. He could not get a firm grip on his footing, his saber arm was beginning to tire. Warily, he tried to reach out to Rey or Luke through the Force, if only to tell them to have Han take off and get them away from here. His momentary loss of focus on his adversary cost him, dearly.

Anakin had never known pain like this. Agony ripped through him and all went quiet. He looked up, into the horrific mask that he knew concealed his own face. When Vader moved back, withdrawing his saber from Anakin’s torso, Anakin fell. He saw, through bleary eyes, as Vader was thrown back with the Force.  _ “Rey” _ , Anakin thought, just before a pair of strong, fury arms grasped him and he was carried away.

He was laid down on some sort of bench, inside the ship. Dimly, he felt the ship move, likely taking off. Rey’s face appeared in his vision. She was crying. Why was she crying?

“S’okay,” he slurred, “s’kay, Rey. Dun cry.”

Rey shook her head, mouth pressed into a bitter line.

“Hold still, keep your eyes open,” she ordered, “I’ve only started learning Force healing, so I need to concentrate.”

“Force healing?” Ah, that was Luke, wasn’t it? Luke! Luke, his son. And...and Leia, his daughter! Twins! He was a father! “Yes, yes you are,” he heard Luke confirm. Ah, perhaps he had said that out loud?

“Wait, did he just call us twins,” that was Leia. Oh, he should have known before. She looked so much like her mother.

Padmé. Beautiful Padmé. Anakin felt tears gathering just as his vision started to blur.  _ “Beautiful, Padmé,” _ he thought,  _ “I never treated you half as well as you deserved.” _

The ship began to shake wildly. Above him, he barely heard the sound of Rey gasping. Darkness took over and then glorious warmth and light. He felt at peace. 

With one last request to the Force, Anakin closed his eyes.


	7. Chapter 7: Another Leia Interlude

**Naboo; 34 ABY**

She knew it was no lie. The truth in Ben’s account of what had happened, of what Luke had done...Leia could not deny it. She looked at her son, her baby boy that had been so hurt, so broken, and her heart ached. She needed to tell him, she needed him to know that she would have protected him if only…

But would she have? Hadn’t she been the one to send him away in the first place, not knowing...not wanting...to deal with her troubled son?

The ground trembled and Leia cried out as her son and her mother disappeared into thin air.

A moment later, they were replaced. Rey was kneeling on the ground, holding her hand to the stomach of an unknown person and crying. Rey’s head turned sharply and she cried out.

“Leia! Please, I need you!” she said, voice trembling. “He was stabbed, with a lightsaber. I can’t...I’m trying to heal him but…” she sobbed, “I don’t think I can do it on my own. I’m not strong enough.”

Leia rushed to them, calling back to the others.

“Help us move him, let’s put him on the chaise.”

Poe and Jessika ran to them and helped Rey lift her charge and carry him to the velvet lounge chair nearby. Together, Rey and Leia focused their Force energy on the wound in the man’s stomach. An indeterminable amount of time later, the hole marking where he had been stabbed began to close, though it did not scar. The two women simply did not have the power or strength or skill at the moment to heal him completely. Leia stepped back, falling into a chair that Rose had found for her. She ordered Poe to contact Chewy, so he could bring the  _ Falcon  _ and they could move the man to a facility for more medical care. Taking a moment to regain her strength, Leia looked, first at Rey and then at her companion.

She knew this man and, in spite of the fact that she had just met her mother, seemingly from another time, the site of her father, pre-Vader, left her stunned. Her eyes traced over his brow, slid across his scarred cheek and she wondered about this man that she had once known as a monster behind a mask and only ignored as family.

“You know then,” Rey whispered. 

“Yes,” Leia replied. She considered the young woman before her. Rey looked as though she had been in a battle, a glance back at Anakin confirmed she likely had, and Leia finally noticed the injury to her flank. “You are hurt, Rey.”

Rey reached down and cupped one hand over the torn flesh in her side. “It’s nothing, I’ll be fine.”

Leia decided not to argue. If Rey was well enough to Force heal, she was likely going to be just fine.

“It would seem,” Leia said, after some minutes, “that you and I have some interesting stories to tell one another.”

Rey blushed, then cocked her head to the side. “What do you mean? What stories do  _ you  _ have?” She looked around, scrunching her nose. “And where are we?”

Leia motioned to Finn, once the Falcon appeared at the edge of the terrace. The group moved the injured man onto the ship and then Leia beckoned Rey to sit with her.

“That place,” she began, “was the ancestral home of my birth mother, Padmé Amidala. It is called Varykino and it is located in the Lake Country of Naboo.”

“Oh,” Rey breathed, “I’ve heard of Naboo. It’s very green.” She gave a small shadow of a grin. “I think under better circumstances, I would have liked to stay a while longer.”

Leia gave her a smile in return. “We are not leaving. I have connections here, family, and they will welcome us. He,” she nodded her head at Anakin, “needs better medical facilities than our base can currently provide.”

Rey was quiet for a while. Leia watched in fascination as the young woman reached out to brush some of Anakin’s hair out of his face. It was obvious that she cared about him, that he mattered to her, even if they had not been companions for very long. Leia pondered this. It was more than clear to her now - for all of her power in the Force, her fighting skill and her unwavering courage - Rey’s greatest strength was her ability to see the good in others and to care for those others might well have forsaken.

“I was training,” Rey said at last, “and then, when I could not stop the thoughts in my head, I decided to meditate.” Her brow furrowed. “I am still not sure exactly what happened but, at some point in my attempt to meditate I,” she stopped, “I somehow got transported away, into the past, and found him there with me.”

Leia was sure that Rey was keeping something important about her meditation from her but did not probe further. Instead, she asked, “his time?”

Rey blinked and looked up, startled, as though she had just realized she had been speaking aloud to Leia. Then she laughed.

“No, not his time,” she eyed Leia with a smirk, “yours. Or rather, your past, from when you were younger.”

As soon as Rey said it, the Force shifted. Leia felt a pressure in her mind, not painful but certainly not comfortable either. It grew and she watched; memories long buried as unimportant began to surface, twisting and realigning themselves. When the pressure ceased, Leia opened her eyes, not having noticed that she had closed them. Rey was leaning forward, one hand out as though to touch her.

“Are you alright?” Rey’s concern bled through the Force.

Leia gave a chuckle. “I remember. My memories have...altered, and I remember now, a new version of what happened on Cloud City. I…” she stopped and her head jerked back to look at Anakin. “He fought him,” she breathed, “he fought Darth Vader.”

“Yes,” Rey said, “and it nearly killed him.” She reached for Leia’s hands. “He was in agony. Once he realized that the monster was him he….oh, Leia, I thought the revelation alone would end him.”

Leia patted one of Rey’s hands, thinking over her new memories and then her eyes widened. “Ben!” She exclaimed, clutching Rey’s hand tighter. “Ben is there now, with my mother!”

“What?” Rey exclaimed, standing and beginning to pace. “What do you mean he is there now? And your mother?”

Leia explained, finally, why she was on Naboo. She told Rey about finding Ben and about her mother’s presence. The shock of it all, still reverberating through her. “I remember now, as soon as you and Anakin disappeared from the  _ Falcon _ , Ben and my mother appeared.”

“And then?” Rey reached for Leia’s hands again, kneeling at her feet. “What happens Leia?”

Leia sighed. “I don’t know,” she admitted, “my memories from that time are now murky. I don’t think they are...set. Whatever happens with Ben and Padmé, because it technically has not happened yet….I suppose...it is not clear to me.” She shook her head. “Time-travel. Such a frustrating business.”

Rey huffed out a laugh and lowered her head to rest on their joined hands. Then, she drew herself up and looked at Leia with a very serious expression on her face. What she said next would only instill new questions in Leia, and new worries.

“I think it’s time I try and reach out to Ben,” Rey said.


	8. Chapter 8: Like Stars in the Sky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry it is taking me longer and longer to post. I have had some issues to deal with lately, on top of being sick (not COVID), and I haven't had much time to write.
> 
> I have given up on making the mood boards for this story since I can't get them to post and no one has been able to help. I was posting them on my twitter with update notices but I don't think anyone is seeing those anyway so...
> 
> Anywho, this is chapter 8. I hope, hope, hope I can have 9 at least written tomorrow, if not posted, but we will see.
> 
> As always, this is not beta'd so all mistakes are mine. 
> 
> Thank you all for reading!

**The Millenium Falcon; Approximately 03 ABY**

Ben wasn’t sure what sort of hell he had stumbled into but he was just about done with time-travel.

The appearance of his mother while he and Padmé were on Naboo was more than enough family reunion for him at the moment. Now, faced with not only his mother - as a young woman no less - but his father ( _kriff!_ ) and his uncle...well, uncles...oh, yes, there was Chewy. Right on time.

“Too?” He heard Padmé question and he was grateful she was of a mind to respond to his mother’s sharp greeting. “What do you mean, are we time-travelers, too?”

Leia opened her mouth to reply, but Luke beat her to it.

“A young woman and man were here,” he said carefully, “the woman claimed to be from the future and she said the man was from the past.

“Rey?” Ben wondered and Luke confirmed. Ben studied the toes of his boots, brow furrowing, “Who was the man then?” 

He looked up and regretted it. His eyes locked on Han’s. As though she had been expecting it, Padmé reached over and placed a steadying hand on Ben’s arm. She looked at Luke.

“His name was Anakin, wasn’t it?” She asked, her tone even and sure.

Ben’s head snapped over. Surprise flooded him and he felt a touch, briefly, of envy that Rey was with the grandfather he had sought aid from for so long. Briefly, though, just briefly; because having Padmé with him, _Rey’s grandmother_ , it was glorious. She was as kind, intelligent and beautiful as her granddaughter and it was almost like having Rey herself here with him.

Luke looked at Padmé for so long without speaking, Ben was wondering if he was going to answer her at all. Leia looked as though she was going to do it for him, several times, but something seemed to be holding her back, rather uncharacteristically.

“You are our mother,” Luke said, finally.

Ben whipped his head back to Padmé again, shocked, and then he huffed out a laugh.

“No, Unc...Luke,” Ben shook his head, “she isn’t. She…”

“Ben,” Padmé interrupted, reaching out to take one of his hands in hers.

The way she was looking at him; so much joy, so much pride, so much _love_. It nearly made him weep.

“You,” he stopped, tongue thick in his mouth and throat working to force the words out, “you...aren’t Rey’s grandmother…”

Padmé shook her head, smiling.

Ben felt his soul leave his body, he was sure of it.

“You’re mine,” he breathed. Then he laughed, genuine and soft, a great smile overtaking his face. It almost felt unnatural and he could not remember the last time he had grinned.

He swept Padmé up in his arms, holding her close and giving a little spin as she giggled, joyously. A throat clearing brought them back to the here-and-now.

“You are her grandson?” Interestingly, the question came not from Luke or Leia, but from Han.

Ben nodded, forcing himself to look his father in the eye. Han stepped away from the wall on which he leaned. His focus on Ben was laser sharp and there was an odd sort of longing in his eyes. When Han reached him, Ben closed his eyes, feeling the overwhelming urge to hug the man that he had once tried so hard to convince himself that he hated. _Kriff_ , he hadn’t realized just how much he had missed his father until this moment.

It wasn’t until he felt a rumble from Han’s chest against his, that he realized he had done exactly that. For the first time in over 17 years, Ben was hugging his father.

And crying, he was also crying, mumbling how sorry he was, over and over.

Releasing Han, Ben stepped back, wiping furiously at his eyes. He kept his eyes on the uncomfortably familiar floor of the _Falcon_. He could not bear to even think about what kind of look the perpetually aloof Han Solo might have on his face.

Instead of joking or looking put off by Ben’s behavior, Han looked sad.

“Never saw myself as a father,” he said, his smirk small but without the usual humor, “but the moment I looked at you, I just felt…” his eyes searched Ben’s, “am I wrong? In thinking what I’m thinking? Am I wrong?”

Ben shook his head. He watched his father’s expression move from contemplative to awed and felt, for the first time, that he had never truly known or understood Han Solo.

“Well,” Han said, stepping back a bit and settling his hands on his hips, “things just got even more interesting.”

“Interesting,” that was Leia, “you call meeting my birth father and mother and now, apparently, _our son_ , interesting?”

Han blinnked, as though coming to a realization. “Heh, our son,” he turned and gave Leia a full-on Han Solo smirk and a wink, “guess you don’t hate me as much as you pretend to, huh, princess?”

Leia glared at him but Ben was shocked to see a pale blush pinken her cheeks. In all of the years he had been forced to endure his parent’s flirting, he had never, not once, seen his mother blush. It was startling and Ben had the uncomfortable feeling that maybe Han wasn’t the only parent he didn’t understand as well as he had thought.

“I take it from the look on your face that they are always like this?” Luke asked him.

“Sadly, yes,” Ben nodded, then turned to the uncle he had tried to murder on Crait, only to realize the man had played him in order to let the Resistance escape. He had felt it, though, the moment Luke passed into the Force. It had provoked feelings in him he had not expected. Loss, abandonment (again) and a small inkling of grief, somewhere deep inside him and easy to pretend didn’t really exist. He looked away from the pale eyes studying him. “I think their incessant lovers routine played a large part in you deciding to build your temple so far away from both Chandrila and Coruscant. I had to have been annoying, watching your best friend smooze all over your sister all the damn time.”

“Sister?” Four voices rang out; three shocked and one, in Shyriiwook, amused.

Ben rolled his eyes. Padmé finally chimed in.

“Yes,” she looked at Luke, then at Leia, “twins.” 

There was pride in her eyes, in spite of the fact that Ben knew she was not pleased with either of her children over what had happened to him. But then, Ben stopped to consider, this Leia and this Luke weren’t the Leia and Luke who had abandoned him and tried to kill him, respectively. Those events had not yet occurred, hell, he hadn’t even been born yet in this time. Perhaps...perhaps this was an opportunity to fix things. Or, barring that, at least make them see that leaving Ben to the demons in his head was not the best way to help him.

“Well,” Padmé clapped her hands together, not allowing anyone time to process what she had just revealed, “how about you kids catch Ben and me up on everything that has been happening. And on Ani and Rey.”

Ben could tell his mother was not quite ready to talk about other things when her son, from the future no less, was standing right in front of her. It was clear she had many questions and, underneath the stern exterior, the mother in her wanted to at least a moment alone with him. It was not to be. Padmé was a former queen and a senator and she was not to be disobeyed, not even by her own children.

Luke, Leia and Han took turns recounting the events that lead them to Cloud City, with Chewy and Lando providing extra details here and there. When they got to the part where Darth Vader had shown up on the landing dock, Ben had to sit down. He curled his hands into fists as Luke described Rey coming to Anakin’s defense and then fighting with Vader. Padmé sank into the seat next to him when Luke told them about Anakin taking over the fight. Her hand flew to her mouth when he told them about Ani getting stabbed.

“We got him on board and took off. Rey said something about healing Ani with the Force and then, they just vanished,” he finished.

So many thoughts were racing through Ben’s mind, it was hard to focus. Rey had fought Darth Vader and apparently did well enough to hold him off for several minutes. Anakin had fought...himself as Darth Vader. What must that have been like? What had his grandfather thought about what he had become? It was something Ben had never considered before. To him, Darth Vader was his grandfather and his grandfather was Darth Vader. Anakin Skywalker had never factored into that. He glanced at Padmé. What kind of man loved, and was _loved by_ , a woman like her and then became a Sith Lord? Ben hated this. He was already starting to wonder if he ever really knew his parents, and even his uncle, but now he was starting to question everything he thought he knew about his grandfather. 

He then wondered, what would young Ben have to say about Kylo Ren?

“Ani,” Padmé was distraught. 

Ben reached over and took her hand in his, squeezing reassuringly. He doesn’t understand, really, how to comfort people, so he goes with honesty. 

“Trust me, Rey is powerful, even more than she knows. If anyone can heal him, it’s her.”

Padmé gives him a grateful smile, small but sincere.

“Who is Rey?” Luke asks, “I mean, who is she to you? To us? She referred to me as Master Luke and spoke to Leia, Han and Chewy as though she knew them.”

Ben wrinkled his nose. Mater Luke indeed.

He started, several times, to explain but how does one explain someone like _Rey_? How could he explain that she is both his Force Bond mate and his enemy?

“She was a scavenger,” he finally says, “on Jakku. She ended up...meeting Han and Chewy. Later, she met me and then Leia,” he nodded toward his mother. “She is...we are on opposite sides of a war but…” he wasn’t sure if he wanted to tell them, if he wanted them to know. The words came out anyway, “we are bonded...through the Force.”

“Bonded through the Force? What does that mean?” Luke asked.

Ben blinked at him in shock before realizing that, of course, this Luke would not know about Force Bonds. This Luke likely knew very little about the Force, at this point.

“A Force Bond is a bond between two people, usually relatives or Padawan and Master, that connects the two beings through the Force,” Ben explains, slowly, “there are stories of Force Bonds that allow pairs to share feelings and thoughts without speaking or to know when the other is in danger or their location, even when separated.”

“And which are you?” Leia asks. At Ben’s confused look, she expands on her question. “Are you related or Padawhatever and Master?”

“Neither,” Ben snorts at the very idea of them being related and feels a twinge of what-if at the idea of being Rey’s teacher. “Rey and I, we are different. I...I’ve been studying more about Force Bonds since we realized what was happening to us several months ago. I believe I might know what we are, why we are connected, but I am not sure at this point. We are able to do things that all of my readings about Force Bonds have not mentioned.”

“Such as,” Luke looked fascinated, kneeling to sit on the floor of the _Falcon_ in front of Ben. It was a shocking parallel to when their positions were reversed; a young Ben Solo sitting attentively in front of his beloved uncle as he explained the Force to him.

Ben shifted in his seat, settling in.

“We can connect to one another, across space,” he said. The others looked confused. “There is an ancient ability for some Force users to be able to project themselves across long distances, planets apart even, but it requires a monumental amount of power and most who have tried, die from the effort. Rey and I though,” his thoughts rushed back to the night they touched hands, “the Force does it for us, brings us together randomly or...maybe not so randomly. I am really not sure. We can see one another and talk, but we can’t see the other’s surroundings or hear people who are with them.” He stopped for a moment, thinking. “Well, that isn’t entirely accurate. I saw...someone, once. Rey and I were able to…” he swallowed and felt his ears heat up, “we touched hands once and I saw someone that was...near her. But that was the only time.”

Ben leaned back and stared up at the ceiling.

“We have also been able to pass things to one another through the Bond,” he continued, fibbing slightly. 

The one time it had happened was about 3 months after Crait. Ben had been working on some reports in his chambers when Rey appeared. She was reading an actual book, one that looked extremely old. Fascinated, Ben had approached her. Before he could get close enough to see what the book was, Rey had jumped up and muttered something to someone he couldn’t see before turning away, apparently meaning to leave. Ben had reached out and snatched the book from her hand, just as the Bond session closed.

Ben had spent hours reading through the text, making notes and marking areas that would be of particular interest to Rey. When next they came together, he handed the book back to her, wordlessly, and had taken no small amount of smug joy in seeing her expression: shock and uncertain gratefulness. Sadly, he never got the chance to ask her about the sections he had noted for her. Perhaps someday…

It was Lando who moved things along.

“We should probably be figuring out where to go from here,” he said, “just because the Empire’s troops didn’t follow us out of Cloud City, that doesn’t mean they aren’t looking for us.”

“Lando’s right,” Han said, standing. He made his way to the cockpit, Chewy following close behind him and Leia scurrying to join them. Luke and Lando moved toward the rear of the ship, speaking in low tones about re-calibrating the tracker frequency to make it harder for the Empire and Vader to find them.

Ben went to stand and go to the cockpit himself but Padmé’s gentle tug stopped him. He sat back down and looked at her, wondering what she could be thinking.

Her hands, so much smaller and more delicate than his own, were warm and soft. She was smiling, a demure thing, and looking at their fingers as she traced one of hers over his. Finally, she looked at him.

“I see a lot of Ani in you,” she said, startling him. “But, after being around Han for more than a few minutes, I see even more of him in you.” She laughed at the indignation that must surely be showing on his face. “And when you talk about Rey, the look in your eyes, the way your tone softens and…” Padmé reached up and stroked her fingers over the scar on his face now.

“You said you are on opposite sides of a war but you did not tell them the whole truth of it,” she continued, “yet you told me. Why?”

Ben was embarrassed. “I thought...I thought you were her grandmother. I wanted you to know...how wonderful she is, even if she is supposed to be my enemy.”

Padmé shook her head, “No, that isn’t why.” Ben was irritated at her questioning him on this. “You told me because you couldn’t help yourself. You never can, when it comes to her, can you? You are always thinking of her, always wishing she was with you. You cannot speak of her that way with your First Order people, so you carry it with you, maintaining silence. And then, you found me and you finally felt free to be honest in your feelings.”

Ben looked down, almost ashamed when hearing it put that way. He didn’t like keeping his Bond with Rey a secret but knew he had to, if only because it could very easily be used against one or both of them. But he hated it and he hated that they could not be together because of her stubborn pride.

“Her stubborn pride, Ben?” Padmé arched an eyebrow at him and he realized he had spoken, at least the last bit, out loud. “Let me tell you a story, dear one. This is an ancient legend of the Naabianiri, which is what our ancestors were called before we became, simply, Naboo.”

Ben matched her expression with his own raised brow, wondering just what wisdom she thought she could impart to him with what was already sounding like a children’s tale.

“Once there were two beings, born into families of greatness,” Padmé said. “They were both slated for glory, both held to high expectation, expected to lead their respective peoples into the final battle between the Naaba and the Niabi. They were enemies, Ben.”

Ah, so this was supposed to be a parallel with him and Rey, then?

“Once they both reached the age of majority, the two began to lead their armies in campaigns against their enemies. Both were wildly successful in battle and,” Padmé sighed, wearily, “the more blood they shed of their enemies, the more they were both revered by their people. But then, they met one another. The leader of the Niabi had been separated from her troops and was lost in the swamplands of the North. While attempting to find her way out, she came across a man, sitting beneath a tree and tending to a wound.”

Ben leaned closer to his grandmother, becoming more and more invested in the story.

“The Niani knew, right away, who this man was. The symbol on his tunic was unmistakable. He was the exalted leader of the Naaba. And he was beautiful,” Padmé grinned at Ben, “and he felt the same about her when he finally looked up from his task. The Niabi assisted the Naaba with his wound and they stayed together that night before the Naaba led the Niabi out of the swamplands and back to her people.”

Ben wondered how Rey might react to coming across an injured him. She would aid him, no doubt. She was too kind to do anything else.

“For several months, the two continued to meet, in secret, and fell more and more in love,” his grandmother’s smile turned bitter, “but as much as they tried to bring an end to the war and the bloodshed, they were met with violent resistance at every turn. Their people began to distrust them and, eventually, the leader of the Naaba was overthrown, seen as too weak to lead his people any longer.”

Ben closed his eyes. It was a scenario he had considered for himself, all too often. Hux, as well as several of the other officers, already hated him. If they found out about Rey…

“He went to his beloved,” Padmé went on, “thinking that if he did, she would leave with him, join him in escaping the planet all together. But, she did not. She could not, would not, leave her weaker Niabi to the slaughter of the more powerful, more violent Naaba. Incised and feeling rejected, the Naaba retracted his words of love and left her, telling her that he would never again think of her with fondness.”

Ben cringed. Though he had not said words as cruel as those to Rey, calling her nothing, he now realized, was pretty bad. Even worse was his behavior on Crait.

“The leader of the Niabi fell into a depression with the loss of her beloved. She mourned him and her will to fight diminished, though she did her best to carry on. A few weeks later, the new leader of the Naaba approached her in battle and revealed that he was aware of her affair with the previous leader, loudly and for all of her people to hear.” Ben felt a prickle of fear. What would his mother and the rest of the Resistance do if they knew about Rey’s connection to him? Would they cast her out? Imprison her? Padmé continued on, “Her people turned against her and she was left alone to battle this cunning enemy. Ultimately, she failed and she knew she was going to die.”

Ben’s heart ached. He couldn’t imagine losing Rey. He couldn’t. In spite of his words to Luke on that blasted salt rock, Ben could not fathom a galaxy without Rey in it.

Padmé patted his hand, recalling his attention to her.

“But perhaps not all was lost. Her beloved arrived, just in time, and took the blow meant for her, saving her life.” Ben sighed in relief, though not for long. “And he died in her place.”

“If this is supposed to be a warning…” He began, but Padmé shushed him.

“The Niabi wept, bitterly, realizing that her love had not forsaken her after all. Taking her short sword in hand, she cried out to all gathered on the battlefield - both the Niabi and the Naaba - ‘Look at what hatred has wrought! Can we not love one another? Must we always be enemies? No more! I will no longer play champion to bloodshed and war!’ And with that,” Padmé said, “she took her own life.”

She was quiet for so long, Ben wondered if that was the end of the story and felt both angry and bereft at the thought that the two lovers had nothing but heartache and death to show for their love. But it wasn’t the end

“Seeing the heartbreak upon the peoples below, the Solna and Lena - the sun and the moon goddesses - reached down and took the two fallen leaders into their arms. They raised them up into the sky with them and set their souls into it. ‘These two shall be a sign,’ the goddesses said, ‘to remain for all time. Between war and love, love must always win. Cease your fighting and declare yourselves one people.’”

Padmé patted Ben’s cheek. “There are two stars in the Nabooan sky that are revered to this day as reminders that we must be a people of peace and of love. They are the souls of the two lovers and are named after them. They are the Morning Star, and her name is Eosphora, which embodies untainted peace, and the Evening Star, which embodies love, in its purest and truest form. His name is Hesperos.”

Ben knew tears were falling from his eyes but couldn’t bring himself to care. He knew the stars Padmé was talking about. Though they were visible at different times of the day, they were always together; twin stars that orbited one another and were drawn into each other’s gravity.

Ben’s hands shook in Padmé’s grip. He looked up at her, beseechingly.

“Is that what you think is going to happen?” He asked quietly. “Do you think that Rey and I are both going to die in this war?”

Padmé sighed. “I don’t know. But that wasn’t why I told you that story, Ben. I told you, because the lesson there is love.” She pulled him into a hug and whispered into his ear. “If you love her, be with her. Whatever it is you think you are fighting for, ask yourself, is it worth not being with Rey?” She pulled back and her face stern. “Is it worth her dying?”

Ben reeled. Though it was always a consideration, a true possibility, he had never allowed himself to give it much thought. He knew Rey, or he, could die, yet he didn’t want to think about it. He believed if he was strong enough, he could prevent it. He would never allow…

He stood abruptly, breaking Padmé’s hold on him. As he did, something fell from the pocket of his robe and he looked down to see his grandfather’s holocron sitting at his feet. He reached down to pick it up, suddenly fervent to know what secrets it held.

Padmé nodded at it. “You should take a look,” she said calmly, “Anakin is many things but frivolous is not one of them; he would not have left that behind if it was not of the utmost importance. If he became the monster that Luke told us about, I am hoping, perhaps, that will help you understand why.”

Ben nodded to her and left. He made his way down the corridor toward where his room had been; an old, hastily converted supply room near the larger storage spaces used for cargo. Of course, it was still a supply room in this time, so instead of a little cot and his trunk of clothes, Ben found a few crates and what looked like a busted speeder bike. Sighing, he sat down on one of the crates.

Holding the holocron up to his face, Ben thumbed over the bumps in the metal. A jagged edge caught his skin and a drop of blood seeped from the small wound. The moment it touched the glass, the holocron lit up and his vision clouded.

When Ben opened his eyes, he found himself looking at a young boy in clothing very much like those that Rey had worn when they first met.


	9. Chapter 9: Reflecting Reflections

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, so sorry for taking so long to post again! I was having some serious writers-block because I have known where I wanted to go from the beginning but when I write...things just go where they want. Now I am back on track and realizing, to my great astonishment, that this fic may well end up the first of a series...
> 
> So...yeah.
> 
> Also, if someone could please, please, please help me figure out what I am doing wrong when trying to post the mood boards for the chapters, I would be eternally grateful. They just aren't wanting to show up!

**Naboo; 34 ABY**

_Rey huffed out a laugh and lowered her head to rest on their joined hands. Then, she drew herself up and looked at Leia with a very serious expression on her face. What she said next would only instill new questions in Leia, and new worries._

_“I think it’s time I try and reach out to Ben,” Rey said._

It was harder than she had imagined, telling Leia about everything that had happened from the moment she and Chewy had arrived on Ahch-To until she had picked up the last of the Resistance on Crait. She tiptoed around certain things - Ben’s naked chest for one though she still felt a blush crawl up her cheeks at the thought of it, to which Leia raised an eyebrow - but she was honest, mostly, when it came to how every encounter with Leia’s son had made her feel. Rey couldn’t lie to her anymore. Not about that.

Leia listened calmly, never interrupting and saving any questions she might have had until Rey was finished talking. The look in her eyes once Rey was done was so filled with hope and joy, Rey was almost afraid of what she was thinking.

“You love him.”

Rey rocked back on her heels, falling onto her ass. Well, that wasn’t what she had expected Leia to say first, or _at all_ . Rey felt her cheeks heating. Love. She loved him? She loved him. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t considered it. Chewy had hinted at the idea when she had asked him to help her go to Ben on the _Supremacy_ but had dismissed his words as teasing. There was no denying it, though, when she thought about the feelings invoked in her when they had touched hands. How hurt and heartbroken she had been when he had chosen the First Order over her.

Since her conversation with Leia, Rey had been sitting in meditation form in the gardens at the palace at Theed. The capital city of Naboo was gorgeous. It was the kind of city Rey could be happy living in, though her glimpses of the Lake Country as they left Varykino left her thinking she would much prefer the Naberrie family estate; Ben’s home, according to Leia.

Rey had been here for several hours, trying every breathing technique, every method of calming and centering herself, in the hopes that she could somehow manipulate the Force Bond she shared with Ben. If she could reach out to him, talk to him, perhaps they could figure out what was happening and why.

Concentrating on the thread that felt like Ben was easy; attempting to follow it and contact him was much more difficult. While she was able to pick up some stray emotions and scattered thoughts, it was proving impossible to open the Bond in a way that allowed her to actually make contact with him, even if only his subconscious. Rey wondered if their Bond would even allow such manipulation from them. She had been so sure that it was possible but…

Sighing, Rey stood from her place amongst the Millaflowers and walked back under the arched corridor that ran the interior circumference of the main building. She headed in the direction of the healing rooms, hoping to check in on Anakin. Though she and Leia had been able to heal the worst of his wound, he was still in bad shape when they had arrived the day before. The external damage was mostly healed but there would be some internal scarring where the saber had sliced his liver. Though she knew it wasn’t her fault, Rey felt responsible. Perhaps if she hadn’t tried to fight Vader, Anakin wouldn’t have thought he had to intervene and then he wouldn’t have gotten hurt.

She knew that was absurd. Anakin would have fought Darth Vader anyway. She had felt his horror, his anguish, once he realized who the creature in the mask was. Anakin would never have run away, not from that fight.

Not from any fight, she was beginning to realize.

Reaching the medical ward, Rey spoke briefly with the charge medic - human, not droid - and was shown to the room Anakin had been assigned.

He was pale and still but his eyes were open and he gave her a self-deprecating grin when she sat down in the chair next to his bed. The smile did not last long, however, and Rey smacked Anakin on the hand when he turned his head to avoid looking her in the eyes.

“None of that, now,” she said.

Anakin closed his eyes and sighed.

“Ani,” Rey jiggled his arm, “look at me. Please.”

Anakin’s eyes opened, somber and hurting. Rey tried to think of what she could say, how she could tell him that...that what? That him becoming Darth Vader at some point in his future didn’t matter? That falling to the darkness wasn’t something to hate himself for?

“I keep thinking,” Anakin began, voice scratchy, “what...what happened? What _will_ happen? How do I fall? Why? _When?_ ” Tears gathered in his eyes, making them appear bluer, larger. “And what of Padmé? Surely she would never have stayed with me if I…” pain lanced through his voice, making Rey’s chest ache, “she must have come to loathe me.” The last, whispered so quietly Rey had to strain to hear it.

Rey squeezed the arm that lay under her hand, noting the slight shivers that wracked his body every so often. Rey instructed a nearby droid to raise the temperature of the room before turning back to Anakin.

“I don’t know what happened to Padmé, Ani,” she said, then took a deep breath, “but...there are some records and...a few people...who might be able to answer your questions.”

“Tell me what you know, Rey,” Anakin pleaded. “Please.”

Rey sighed but settled in. Though there were still large gaps in her knowledge, she knew more than most, now, thanks to Leia. The last several months since Crait had not just been about training or growing the Resistance back to its former size. A great deal of time had also been devoted to long talks with Leia about Luke, Vader, the Empire and everything in between.

_“I can’t know what I am fighting if I don’t even know where it came from,” Rey had argued, trying to get Leia to open up. “Snoke and the First Order grew out of the Empire. If I knew how the Empire came about, I will better know what the First Order even is, what it is trying to accomplish. Surely there is a reason for all of this?”_

She started slow, trying to organize her thoughts and keep from letting her own biases, and Leia’s, color her telling. It was hard though, not to let her anger and frustration flow at the Senate’s inability to see what was happening right in front of them. She knew that wasn’t fair. One thing Leia had tried to tell Rey, and perhaps remind herself, was that it was much easier to see clearly once events had already happened and to condemn those that lived them without understanding what they experienced. It was much harder to make oneself aware of how easy it is to be blind to a truth staring you in the face when you don’t have all of the picture.

Rey talked for over an hour and Ani never once interrupted. Not to ask a question or for clarification on something she had said. The Force around him was calm; calm in a way she had never felt from him since they had first met. Rey almost wondered at it until, near the end of her description of the Emperor's ascension and the first moments of the Empire, she realized that Anakin _trusted her_ , absolutely. It threw her for a moment. For all that she knew about Anakin Skywalker from others (Leia mostly) and what she had read in the historical holos, trusting others did not seem to be a trait that came by him easily.

What had she possibly done to warrant such faith?

The room was quiet, for a long time, after she finished speaking. Rey knew Anakin must have questions. She knew that he must want to know something more about what she had described as the fall of the Republic and the rise of the Empire. Perhaps, even, more beyond what she had told him about his time as Vader, his confrontations with Luke and his ultimate death. Rey had sensed very un-Jedi-like pride from Ani when she told him about Leia standing toe-to-toe with the generals of the Empire and about Luke’s showdown with the Emperor.

She had also felt his grief and self-loathing when she described the death of Obi-Wan, as Leia had described it to her.

“I am a monster.” Anakin said, voice trembling.

Rey recoiled at hearing those words from Anakin. Words that she had thrown at his grandson not so long ago. She took a moment to blink back the tears that threatened to fall and grasped Anakin’s hand tighter in her own.

“No,” the vehemence in her voice startled him and he looked at her with wide eyes. “You are not a monster. I thought I understood what that meant but I was wrong. _He is not a monster!_ ”

Rey sat back with a gasp, realizing what she had just said.

Anakin studied her. “You were talking about me but…”

Rey shut her eyes, unable to look keep his gaze when she muttered out, “Ben...I...I called him the same thing once...twice.” She shook her head, fighting back the sobs choking her. “He isn’t. _He isn’t!_ ”

“Rey.”

Rey choked on a breath and spun in her seat. Leia was standing at the door, warm eyes filled with compassion and the hint of moisture. Rey let the tears fall.

“I shouldn’t have said that to him!” She cried. “I shouldn’t have called him that! I hurt him. I know it hurt to hear that, yet again, someone thought him...thought he…”

“Rey.” That was Anakin. “You cannot hate yourself for what has already happened. Not when you have the chance to change things now.”

A new light had entered Anakin’s eyes. An understanding. A resolve.

He looked to his daughter. “Will you tell me?” He asked Leia. “Tell me about the Emperor. Tell me about Padmé. What happened to her? What happened to me?”

Leia took a step into the room, then another. She nodded and Rey stood, abandoning her seat for the older woman. Leia sat down. She and Anakin studied one another for a long time.

“I never accepted or acknowledged you, after Luke told me the truth,” Leia began.

Rey did not hear any more. She left the room, knowing her presence was not needed, and not particularly wanted, considering the conversation that was about to take place.

She walked the inner corridor for hours, thinking over what she had told Anakin. Over what Anakin had said to her.

_“You cannot hate yourself for what has already happened. Not when you have the chance to change things now.”_

Regardless of what Anakin had told her in Cloud City, she had already decided to use this...this time-travel debacle...as a chance to change things. But now, she realized, it wasn’t just her. They _all_ had a chance to change things. What Anakin was learning about his past...future?...and whatever was happening to Padmé wherever she was with Ben…

This could change everything. If Anakin knew the truth, if he was able to see what was happening to him before he fell, maybe...maybe he would be able to keep himself from falling at all. And if he knew about the Emporer…

“Rey!”

Rey turned at the call of her name. Finn was on the other side of the small courtyard that lay in this area of the palace. Poe and Jess were standing just behind him, and appeared to be in a rather heated discussion. Rose was sitting on the grass just outside the corridor, leaning against one of the massive stone pillars and marking something on the holopad in her hands. She looked up at Finn’s shout and smiled at Rey, waving.

Deciding to put her thoughts to rest for a while, Rey walked over to her friends, glad for a distraction. However, the closer she got, the easier it was to see the tension in three out of the four. While Rose was still happily engrossed in whatever had caught her attention on the holopad, the others did not look happy or at ease.

Finn was scowling, his arms crossed over his chest and stance rigid. Poe was also scowling and his body was almost vibrating, as if ready for a fight. Rey glanced at Jessika. Though the other woman was frowning, she also appeared to be conflicted and apprehension shown in her eyes.

Rey sighed. So much for taking her mind off of things. If the pointed comments and heated remarks from Finn and Poe during the short trip from Varykino to Theed were any indication, they were both about to unload a torrent of questions and accusations at her.

“Darth Vader?” Poe shouted at her when she was within a few feet of them. Thankfully, he lowered his voice after Jess poked him in the arm with a hiss. “What are you doing running around with Darth Vader?”

Rey rolled her eyes. That only seemed to make him even jumpier than he had been and she saw, from the corner of her eye, when Finn jolted before his face turned thunderous.

“Is this funny to you?” he asked, voice grating with the anger in it. “First, you go off to Kylo Ren, _shipping yourself to him_ no less,” he grunted, “yeah, don’t think we didn’t figure that one out, Chewy told us enough to figure out the truth. But then,” he continued with his original tirade, “ _then_ , you decide to go gallivanting around with Darth kriffing Vader?”

Gallivanting? Really? As though she and Anakin had been off on a vacation instead of being yanked through time, confronting ghosts and battling pure Darkness. Rey narrowed her eyes, daring Finn to persist with his line of questioning. Unfortunately, both he and Poe were so caught up in their own rage, they were unable to register Rey’s growing fury.

“You know what I think,” Poe sneered, in a manner so unlike and yet so like him that Rey was thrown for a moment. While she would never have considered such a look could cross Poe’s visage, the moment it did it looked completely natural. It made her feel discombobulated, that her own friends might not be the sort of people she thought they were.

“What do you think, Poe?” Finn asked, though his tone said he already agreed with whatever Poe was about to say. They had likely already come to several conclusions together, as they were wont to do when particularly invested in something.

“I think,” Poe stepped toward Rey, “that our little scavenger has a thing for homicidal bastards and that maybe,” he tilted his head, glaring at her, “she can’t be trusted when it comes to Kylo Ren.”

From next to him, Jess let out another little hiss of his name; she looked at once appalled and ill.

Finn had started nodding before Poe was done speaking, movement stilted but Rey could tell he agreed with Poe completely.

Rey’s anger grew.

“I think,” Poe continued, “that Rey has been talking to Leia, turning her head and making her think that Ren can be turned. Making her think her son isn’t the vile creature he really is.”

Finn was still nodding. He locked eyes with Rey. For a moment, her rage seemed to get through to him, but then his expression turned pitying.

“Rey,” Finn reached out a hand toward her, likely meaning to touch her on the arm or should. She wretched back away from him. He scowled. “I know you are lonely and that you might feel separated from everyone else because of,” he waved his hands at her but did not elaborate or clarify what he meant. It didn’t matter, she already knew and her anger intensified. “And you probably are looking for someone who understands you, but Rey,” he stepped toward her, pity even more pronounced, “I understand you. And I know Ren, better than anybody and he…”

“Enough!” Rey shouted, her ire broken open and bearing down on her, swirling in the Force so strongly even her companions had to able to feel it. “ _You know him?_ ” She marched toward Finn who at least had the presence of mind to step away from her, “ _You know me?_ ” Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t know bantha-shit!” She screamed. “You know nothing about Ben and you certainly don’t know anything about me if you think I am drawn to him because I’m lonely or because I feel like I don’t fit in to the Resistance!”

Her breathes were coming in pants now, her skin hot with the flush of her anger.

“You don’t know me at all, Finn,” she ground out, “and for you to stand there, pretending you do…” she looked away and huffed out a humorless laugh, then whirled on him, “you are a liar.” He flinched. “You lied to me the moment you met me, pretending to be someone you weren’t. You lied to the Resistance about helping them with Starkiller,” his eyes widened and Rey sneered, “Oh yes, Chewy told me about that, _Finn_. He told me that you lied to Leia, to Han, about wanting to help them destroy Starkiller. You…”

“I did it for you!” Finn interrupted, clenching his fists at his side. “I was worried about you, I wanted to save you…”

“No!” Rey swiped her hand between them, cutting him off. “You can try to justify it however you want but You. Are. Selfish.”

Quiet descended for a moment. Finn looked stricken, then his face crumpled into fury once more. Poe’s expression was just as thunderous.

“You ungrateful little,” he began, but a soft voice cut him off.

“She’s not wrong.”

Four heads swiveled to look at Rose. She looked back at them, setting her now dark holopad to the side.

“She’s not wrong,” Rose said again. Poe took a half step toward her, mouth opening to argue. A glare from Rose left whatever he had been preparing to say stuck in his throat. “The first time we met,” Rose looked to Finn, “you were trying to run away. You insisted it was to save your friend, protect her, keep her safe,” she tilted her head in Rey’s direction, “but that was selfish, all the same.”

“Honestly,” Rose got to her feet, brushing grass from her trousers and stowing her holo in one of the large pockets in her utility vest, “it’s a bit creepy, the way you follow Rey around, making selfish decisions concerning her, and now…” Rose scrunched her nose, “now you are standing here, angry with her over a relationship that you know absolutely nothing about beyond your own imaginings and beliefs. You have no right to do that. Rey hasn’t done anything wrong and her relationships with Kylo Ren, Darth Vader, Ben Solor or Anakin Skywalker...it isn’t any of your business unless she wants it to be. And so far, she hasn’t.”

Rey felt the love she held for Rose blossom from the small bud it had in her heart to a full-grown bloom. Jess, for her part, was relaxing more and more as Rose spoke, as though the other woman was putting thought to voice her own conflicted feelings.

Rey moved closer to Rose and Jess, looking only at them but speaking to all four of her friends.

“I know what he, what they, have done.” She said softly. “But I also know that who the galaxy knows them to be is only a microcosm of the truth. Things are not so easy as good and evil, Light and Dark. When Snoke was killed...when Ben” she closed her eyes, wishing that one secret she could share and knowing, somehow, she couldn’t. She tried again. “When Snoke was killed, Ben was finally free. The monster that had been inside his head almost his entire life was finally gone. For the first time he…”

It hit her, light a blaster-bolt to the head.

Ben. He had told her he wanted to let it all go, the past, the Resistance, everything. In that moment, she now realized, he wasn’t planning or plotting or preparing to take over. He was thinking, evaluating, trying to work through his new, unexpected _freedom_ . His stilted explanations and confused ramblings about ruling the galaxy together: it wasn’t a plan, it was a suggestion, a question. He didn’t know, then, what he wanted or how to go about their next steps. He wasn’t sure what he was even doing, only thinking, surely, that he had to do _something_.

Oh. _Oh!_

Rey buried her face in her hands, laughing and sobbing all at once. She felt the brush of fingertips against her arm and looked up to see Rose standing next to her, head tilted in worry.

Rey laughed.

“He was finally free,” she whispered, then her joy vanished. He was finally free and what had she done? “And I pushed him. I didn’t even give him a moment to collect himself, to figure out what he wanted, what he needed, from his freedom. I…” she clenched her eyes shut, “ _Kriff!_ I did exactly what everyone else has always done to him! I tried to push him into what I wanted. I tried to tell him what path he _had_ to take. No wonder he was so angry, no wonder he said…” 

Rey shook her head. The memory of Ben’s harsh words, _“You’re nothing, but not to me”_ they had hurt then and they hurt now but at least now she understood. Rey had confronted him, had backed him into a corner, and Ben was no Leia. He did not have the gift of tongue that his mother possessed, or even his father for that matter. Ben was awkward, unsure and, in that moment, scared. He had needed her and she had made him feel unworthy and so he lashed back at her. Even still, he had tried to soften the blow. _“But not to me”_. He had been trying to make her see, to make her understand.

Rey was important to him and, if he knew nothing else in that moment, he knew he wanted to be with her.

Tears leaked from her eyes then, trailing over her cheeks.

“I failed him,” she cried.

Rose’s hand grasped her more fully and she found herself pulled against her friend. Another set of arms wrapped around her from the side and Rey smelled Jessika’s Balvamint soap mixing with the soft notes of Falaraflower that clung to Rose’s hair. The combination was soothing and Rey sighed, her tears slowing.

She pulled away and looked at the two women in front of her.

“Anakin told me that I could not hate myself for what has already happened, not when I have a chance to change things.” She took a deep, cleansing breath. “And I am. I am going to change things. How, I am not sure yet, but this cannot go on.”

Jess regarded Rey with a tilted head and the ghost of a smile that slowly turned into a full-fledged grin.

“I do like a challenge and this sounds like a doozy,” she laughed. 

Rose nodded in agreement. “Sounds like the kind of thing Paige would have been ready and willing to fight for,” she said earnestly.

The three women looked at Finn and Poe. Both men were still glowering, bodies stiff, but Rey could tell they were also both feeling a little more than chastised. Perhaps they would come around, perhaps they wouldn’t. It didn’t matter. Not anymore. Now, Rey knew what she wanted and she wasn’t going to let anyone tell her it was wrong or not the correct path to take.

Rey was done doing what others thought she should. It was time for her to start doing things her way.


	10. Chapter 10: A Different Leia, Leia Interlude

**The Millenium Falcon; Approximately 03 ABY**

Leia Organa: Princess of Alderaan, youngest Senator in the history of the Republic, General of the Resistance.

Leia had seen a lot in her 20-odd years. A lot of strife. A lot of hope. A lot of pain and a lot of joy. She had watched as her people were annihilated. She had helped see to it that the weapon of Aldaraan’s destruction could never do such harm again.

Leia leaned back in her seat, ignoring the concerned glances from Han and Chewy as she stewed over the last several hours.

She had met her father, her birth father, and had come to know the truth about Darth Vader. Well, some of the truth. Briefly, she wondered if Vader knew but dismissed the thought as quickly as it had come. She may not understand the Force or even have it, she wasn’t sure, but she did know that Vader had been honest in his dealings with her. As honest as a man like him could be. He had no idea who she was to him.

Leia gulped at that. She was the daughter of the man who had overseen the murder of her people. Except, he wasn’t, really. It had been Grand Moff Tarkin who had ordered the firing of the Death Star at Alderaan and while Vader had not exactly intervened, Leia had known, even then, it wasn’t a decision he had agreed with.

She shook her head. No, she could not make him out to be anything more than he was. A monster cloaked in Darkness.

Still…the woman. Padmé.

Leia knew her. Her father, Bain, had spoken of Padmé Amidala on a few occasions but always the conversations were so marked with sadness, Leia had wondered over her father’s long-lost friend.

She was...beautiful. And not just physically, though Leia had no qualms recognizing it. She was just, simply, a beautiful person. Her interactions with Ben…

Oh,  _ Ben _ !

Leia took a shuddering breath.

Ben was  _ her son! _

A quick glance at Han had her nearly laughing out loud. Her son, yes, and Han’s. Leia took a slow, deep breath in. She had married Han, or, rather, would marry Han at some point in the future. Leia knew that with certainty. For all she was a modern woman and would never tell others how to conduct themselves, she had vowed early in her blossoming womanhood that she would not give herself to any but her husband.

Marriage and mating were not so religious or sanctified a thing on Alderaan but the idea of honest, life-long love held deep importance to her people.

There was a reason so many of the traditional braids signified romance, love, devotion and marriage.

Leia’s thoughts drifted back to the young man she had left in the other room. Though she had questions, so many questions, for both him and Padmé, she also didn’t know where to start. The way that Ben had looked at her, from the moment he and her mother had appeared on the  _ Falcon _ , it had broken her heart. Apprehension, anger, despair. And his reaction to seeing Han!

Leia knew there were secrets there, dark ones, and while she was never a woman to back down from a challenge, she feared what she might learn about herself, Han and their son if she were to pursue the questions she had. She feared that the pain in his eyes was, at least partly, her fault.

Leia was no stranger to self-reflection, though she could admit that her pride often led her to ignoring her own failings in favor of inflating the failings of others, if only to have someone to blame when things went wrong. Someone other than herself. It was a glaring, life-long vice. One that her parents and, later, her fellow Resistance leaders had tried to make her acknowledge. She had refused, of course, because how could someone full of pride accept that they were prideful to a fault?

Leia took another deep, shuddering breath.

And perhaps that was the problem. She could not accept that she had weaknesses, shortcomings, and so ignored them and carried on, likely...most certainly...hurting those closest to her along the way.

She glanced at Han. Was their marriage a happy one? Considering Ben’s reaction to the two of them, likely not. Instinct had Leia scoffing to herself and listing all of the ways Han would be a terrible husband. It took a great amount of inner-strength for Leia to wipe those thoughts away and focus on the real question. What kind of wife and mother was  _ she _ ? Was she there for them? Did she listen when Ben was sad and hurting? Did she fly off the handle when Han did something...well, something that Han would do? Was she loving and nurturing toward Ben?

A thought left her stricken. No, she wasn’t. Leia knew she could be kind and caring but she had never been particularly nurturing. Her parents were, very much so. They had showered her with love and hugs and kisses and every ounce of attention she could have possibly wanted and yet she…

But then, perhaps that was genetics more than nature? Leia had to dismiss that theory rather quickly. Padmé, in the very short time they had spent together thus far, had proven herself to have a nurturing, loving nature that emanated from her very soul. Whether Anakin Skywalker was the same, Leia did not know, but she had a hard time believing a woman like Padmé would ever be with someone that did not show an acceptable amount of attention and affection.

So, what then? What did that mean for Leia? Was she just some cold-hearted thing, incapable of showing her own husband and child the love they deserved?

“Stop it, Princess,” Han’s voice broke through Leia’s thoughts. She looked up at him to find that Chewy had left the cockpit and Han was now facing her in his captain’s chair, hands clasped and arms resting on his knees. “I don’t know what you’re thinking about but the frown on your face tells me it isn’t good.”

Leia clenched her jaw. He was right, but he didn’t understand. She needed to do this. She needed to know…

“How did you know?” She asked him. Han quirked an eyebrow at her, so she clarified. “How did you know who he was? Ben?”

Han sighed and sat back in his seat. He looked more introspective than Leia had ever seen him.

“I just…” he huffed out a laugh. “I just looked at him and I knew that, whoever this man was, I loved him.” He shouldered a very Han-like shrug. “It was like instinct. Once I heard him call that other gal, Padmé, his grandmother...and knowing that she was your mother...I just...knew.”

Leia frowned. That was it? He just knew?

“But…” her face scrunched in annoyance, “but I  _ didn’t _ , Han. I saw him and just...he was just another person, a stranger to me. I didn’t,” her voice cracked and a sob lodged in her throat, “I didn’t feel anything! What does that say about me?”

Han’s face fell. He looked so sad for her in that moment that she couldn’t help but love him all the more, regardless of how hard she had been fighting her attraction to him.

“It doesn’t necessarily mean anything, darling,” a soft, femanine voice said from behind her. Padmé moved around the passenger seats and lowered herself into the one next to Leia. She took her hand in her own, stroking it gently. “I didn’t know either. At first,” she said with a small smile, “I considered Ben my enemy. I did not know him. I did not know where I was. I was frightened and alone and here was this large, looming man swathed in black, calling himself the Supreme Leader of the galaxy and I,” she laughed, “I had no idea.”

Han’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. “Supreme Leader?” He glanced at Leia.

Padmé sighed. “Yes. When I first appeared, after leaving my time, it was in his time. From what he told me, after the Empire fell” she gave them both a meaningful look, “the New Republic formed and things were somewhat quiet for a while. Then, a being named Snoke rose up and formed the First Order, hoping to take over where the Empire had failed.”

She paused, a look of comprehension dawning.

“I believe that Snoke is the one who took Ben.” She shook her head. “That is the only way to describe it. From what Ben said, Snoke had been in his head, twisting his thoughts and encouraging his Darkness, from the moment he was born.”

Anguish lanced through Leia at the words. The thought that her son, her baby, had suffered such. She could not bear it. A soft shushing sound from Padmé quieted her sobs.

“Ben told me that you sent him to Luke,” she said, “hoping that your brother could help him with the Darkness that plagued him.” She paused again, and Leia could tell that there was something that Padmé wanted to tell her but had decided against. 

“Luke was unable to do so.” She finally said and Leia was incensed, for she knew her mother was keeping something from her that she needed to know. Her anger must surely have been on her face because Padmé gave her a look so scolding, it could only come from a mother. “Your brother is a good man, Leia, and I have no doubt that he did what he thought would be best for Ben but...we are only people and we cannot know what decisions we make will ultimately be the correct ones or if they will only make things worse.”

“And Luke’s decisions regarding Ben only made things worse,” Leia spit out.

Padmé narrowed her eyes at her and Leia shrank back. Where Breha had never been a confrontational woman, Padmé was very much willing to take to task those who deserved it, including her own children, it seemed.

Leia looked away.

“Can’t be mad at Luke,” Han interjected with another shrug. “Sounds like we didn’t really do much to help our son either.” He looked down at his hands. “I don’t suppose I would have been very good at it, dealing with a kid who has the Force.” He snorted. “Knowing me, I would have run away rather than try to help and screw everything up.”

“You did leave, eventually,” a shaky voice said. “But that was always the biggest argument, between me and mom. She wanted me to go to Luke, to learn how to control my power. Me? I didn’t want to go to Luke. I wanted to go with you.”

Leia, Han and Padmé looked over to the entrance of the cockpit. Ben was leaning against the doorway, his face ashen, eyes anguished, and whole bearing as one in a state of shock.

“The thing is, dad,” Ben continued, hoarsely, his voice breaking, “I always wanted to be just like you.”

Then, Ben collapsed.


	11. Chapter 11: By Thy Blood, By Thy Fury

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is heavy and I was honestly shaking by the time I finished writing it. It was hard and I needed to ensure that the gravity of what Ben experienced was visceral. I hope I achieved that. 
> 
> Fair warning, though there are a couple of moments in this chapter, the next chapter is where we begin earning our rating. And, because chapter 11 is so dark, I will go ahead and post 12 later today, just to leave things on a happier note for the week.

**The Millenium Falcon; Approximately 03 ABY**

_ Holding the holocron up to his face, Ben thumbed over the bumps in the metal. A jagged edge caught his skin and a drop of blood seeped from the small wound. The moment it touched the glass, the holocron lit up and his vision clouded. _

_ When Ben opened his eyes, he found himself looking at a young boy in clothing very much like those that Rey had worn when they first met. _

The image distorted a moment later, colors bleeding into one another and a fog settled over the scene. Ben felt as though he had stepped into a dream and the sensation left him off-balanced.

As he watched, the boy leaned in to hug someone, a woman, before leaving with a man whose image was so corrupted by the cloudy mist that Ben could not make out any of his features. Ben was forced to his knees as fear, grief, excitement and a touch of anger churned in his gut. He was aware enough to recognize that these emotions were not his own but they were so heavy he was left dry-heaving on the ground as the two figures walked past him and disappeared into the fog. Ben closed his eyes against the sudden vertigo that assaulted him as the scene melted away. The next time he opened his eyes, the same boy was standing with a group of figures in a large, circular room.

Yet again, Ben could not hear what was being said. The emotions, however, never left him. The anger and fear grew, excitement all but extinguished; yet it did not feel right. The fear was genuine, had almost a childish tint to it. It was a fear Ben remembered well from his own battles with nightmares as a boy; fear that was honest and real but easily dispelled by the light of day. The anger though, the anger felt twisted, raw. It was not the same anger he had felt during the first vision. Whereas that anger had been mired in anxiety and confusion for the situation, this anger...it was almost as though…

The scene blew away and another snapped into existence. The boy, older now, amongst figures that appeared to be the same age. Embarrassment and pride ruled here, along with the anger. Another change; the boy as a young man. Another change. And another and another. The visions rushed past Ben, allowing him just enough time to process the basics of what was happening before whipping away again.

Ben shook, still kneeling on the ground, sweat dripping down his temples and his arms holding his rolling stomach.

A new picture emerged, this one the clearest so far. The sudden brightness, the explosion of vibrant color, seared Ben’s eyes and he clenched them in pain. Finally, he emptied his stomach, the contents of which seemed to disappear as soon as he expelled them.

Ben looked up. Anakin stood amongst flowers and stone, the lake at Varykino behind him, and next to him, Padmé. Ben took in a shaky breath. His grandmother truly was beautiful. The picture of elegance, grace and femininity that put even Ben’s own mother to shame. Leia was all of those things, truly, but her countenance had always been edged with a sort of roughshod steel, much like the  _ Falcon _ , hastily cobbled together from whatever pieces happened to be available. Padmé, on the other hand, was firm in the way of ancient trees and majestic mountains; naturally occurring and intricately woven into her very being.

“I hate sand.” Ben heard and he cringed.

Listening to his grandfather attempt to woo his grandmother made Ben flush in embarrassment. Apparently, he had gotten his awkward way with words and clumsy flirting technique from Anakin, if his overtures to Rey on the  _ Supremacy  _ were anything to go by.

His stomach settled but the reprieve was all too brief.

Once more, the scenes began to fly past him. He saw Anakin in battle in some sort of sand and rock hewn arena. He watched as Anakin confronted an older man, who wielded a red saber, in some sort of hanger. He observed, with heartbreaking sadness, the wedding of his grandparents. Knowing that their story surely could not have ended happily made it difficult to view the ceremony as anything less than the prelude to tragedy.

Ben’s throat constricted with nausea again when a new image assaulted his eyes. His grandfather’s bare ass clenching as he pumped his hips and his grandmother crying out while raking her nails down Anakin’s back was not something Ben had ever wanted to see. Ben turned away quickly but peeked behind him when his footing faltered, indicating yet another change in the visions.

He immediately wished he hadn’t. Seeing Anakin’s ass was one thing, spying his grandfather’s face buried between Padmé’s legs was quite another and much, much worse.

Ben desperately wished he could move these visions along but he had no control here and was forced to keep himself prepared for another moment of intimacy between his grandparents every time the scene changed, just in case. There were...more of these moments than he had expected but he should not have been surprised, he supposed, they were married after all…

The next full vision fell into place. Anakin and Padmé were in a sitting room, lavish and elegant, with a grand view of Coruscant behind them. Anakin presented Padmé with a small box, the deep purple velvet looking decadent against Anakin’s tanned hands. It was the object inside that had Ben’s heart squeezing in his chest. Padmé removed the delicate gold chain and from it swung a small, gold and green pendant. The seraphinite stone had been carved into a perfect oval and gold filigree scrolled over the surface, creating a luminescent effect. Ben knew this necklace. Padmé had been wearing it when they first met and was wearing it still.

It was the scene immediately following, however, that made Ben’s breath catch. He watched as Padmé told Anakin they were to have a child, that same pendant just visible under the fall of her cloak.

How long? Ben wondered. How long between receiving the pendant and…

He was never able to fully form the thought. Again, the visions shifted. The Darkness that had been all but expelled through every scene Anakin had with Padmé rose up again, smothering everything in that bitter, heavy fog.

Ben braced himself but the tide of anger that washed over him brought him, once again, to his knees. Fear lanced through him as he watched Anakin struggle with nightmares of losing his love, his family. Fury, rich and deep, ignited in his gut with every moment Anakin spent near Palpatine. That was when Ben realized, the unnatural anger he had been feeling this entire time had not been Anakain’s own. It had been Palpatine, stoking and stroking Anakin’s natural and, honestly, sometimes volatile temper into something else, something truly monstrous. It made Ben ache, deep within him, to see his grandfather manipulated the same way he had been by Snoke and yet…

And yet, Ben scowled, whereas he had not been aware of what was happening to him until, and only after, his master died, Anakin knew. He knew he was being manipulated, perhaps not at first but it didn’t take him long to figure it out. Ben was sure of it. Anakin knew, but he did not care because the thought of gaining the power to keep Padmé safe mattered more to him than what Palpatine was doing to him.

Anakin knew that he was being groomed and he accepted it!

Ben knew that the rage he felt now was his own. That Anakin had known, on some level, what Palpatine was doing and did nothing to stop it or distance himself from it was vile. Even as Anakin told the council Palpatine’s identity as Darth Sideous, Ben knew that it was the last bit of honor in him that compelled him to do so. His actions in Palpatine’s rooms, his attack on Master Windu, cemented that.

Anakin had a choice and, when it came down to it, he chose the darkness.

But - Ben looked away from the scene in which Anakin was renamed Darth Vader - was Ben really so different? Hadn’t he also had a chance to choose? Multiple chances?

He rubbed at the ache in his chest as his father’s visage rose in his mind’s eye.

Yes, Ben had also had a choice and he had also chosen wrongly.

Ben sighed. He looked back to the memories playing out in front of him just in time to see Anakin watching as a ship landed on a volcanic, dark land. Padmé appeared, heavily pregnant and with anguish in her eyes. It was an even deeper anguish that was she had shown in the scene before, when Anakin had confessed to her the murder of the Tusken Raiders following his mother’s death at their hands. It was a deeper anguish than Ben himself had felt while watching his grandfather slay his fellow Jedi, younglings and all.

Ben watched, helplessly, as Anakin assaulted Padmé with accusations and, when deaf to the truth she tried to impart to him, choked her using the Force. Ben shuddered. The ground under his knees was hot and sharp, digging into his skin through his leather pants. The wave of nausea returned, stronger than ever. Pain bled into a frenzy of savage rage. Ben blearily watched as Anakin and Obi-Wan Kenobi fought. His eyes began to lose focus and, as Obi-Wan taunted Anakin about him having the high-ground, Ben felt the world fall away beneath him.

Suddenly, he was in the air, saber drawn and ready to strike. He was coming out of a jump and, as he looked into the eyes of Obi-Wan, a searing pain lanced through him. He fell short of his target, blinded by rage and agony. He glanced back from his sprawl on the ground at Obi-Wan’s feet and saw that his own legs had been shorn clean from his body. The next several minutes were a cacophony of unbearable torment. He vaguely registered Obi-Wan leaving but could only focus on the excruciating burn of the lava lapping at his body, trying to eat him whole. 

Ben struggled to breathe. He struggled to understand what was happening to him.

The sensation of being lifted, the heavy pulse of a presence in the Force that made him feel all-at-once bitter and triumphant, the drag of metal against bone...the haze around Ben’s mind refused to lift and yet did nothing to shield him from the sights, sounds, smells and feeling of being torn apart, reassembled, and retrofit with machinery Ben knew was meant to keep him alive. His body shook, trembling waves of bile searching for an escape from his throat. It burned but then, everything burned. White-hot, scalding and so intense Ben was sure he was going to black out yet the agony continued, unabated and the relief that oblivion would bring was blocked by that very same Force presence he had felt earlier.

Palpatine.

Palpatine had kept Anakin awake for all of it, for every moment of the surgery that turned him into more machine than man. He had wanted him to suffer this. He had wanted him to know every second of it. And perhaps it was that knowledge or the pain he had already been made to endure but nothing could have prepared him for what happened the moment he stepped out of the surgical chamber, clad in the new bio-suit that would become his signature over the next two decades.

His first words were asking after Padmé. Where was she, was she safe?

“It seems, in your anger, you killed her.”

Ben lurched forward. The anguish searing through him escaped in a roar, muted by the ventilation mask he wore. A fury unlike any he had ever known blinded him. His hearing, muted by the intense grief coursing through him, barely picked up the sound of a saber igniting. His limbs, heavy with the pain of Padmé’s loss by his own hands, struggled to move and yet, move they did. Ben recognized the feeling of slicing through metal and bone with a saber, though he was so caught up in his suffering he could not discern exactly what, or who, he was attacking.

Padmé. Padmé was gone and it was all his fault. He had murdered her! He had murdered his love!

Ben sobbed. He wanted out of this memory. He wanted, desperately, to get away.

Then, blessedly, he was. He found himself on the ground again, lying face down and quivering. The scruff of boots roused him. He looked up, up, up and his eyes caught on the shining mask of the man he had once so revered. Intense hatred sparked through him. This monster had killed Padmé! This horrid creature had ended the life of one of the only people who had ever even tried to understand him!

Ben stood, prepared to walk away, to somehow get himself out of the holocron. He didn’t want to know what this memory contained. It didn’t matter. He now knew all he needed to know about Darth Vader.

“I could not bear it,” he heard Vader say, the mask altering his voice so that his tone was level and without emotion, “I could not bear knowing that I had killed her.”

Suddenly, the figure turned and looked directly at Ben. It should not have been possible.

“I do not know how we are related,” Vader continued, “but you would not have been able to open this holoron unless you shared my own blood.”

Despite himself, Ben was curious. He stepped closer and turned to watch the new vision that formed in front of them.

Vader, the vision and not the one watching with him, was in some kind of white room, surrounded by what appeared to be medical equipment. Though still relatively clean, it was clear that this room had not been used in years. Vader was stood in front of a small droid, poking and prodding at it’s insides. His gloved finger twitched and the droid sprung to life. Vader spoke to it, though his words were too soft for Ben to hear. Suddenly, the scene swirled away and they were now watching that Vader in a different place. A humanoid female, elderly but still cognizant, sat on a table not dissimilar to the interrogation table Ben had once strapped Rey to. The female cried out and Ben knew, from his stance and the Force swirling around him, that Darth Vader was rifling through her memories.

Bile rose in Ben’s throat again as he was at once able to see, feel and hear what Vader was pulling from the female’s memories.

Padmé, laid out on a medical bed, crying. Several droids and living medics circled her. Ben realized she was giving birth.

Of course. Anakin  _ couldn’t  _ have killed her as she had not yet given birth when he was choking her.

That same old Darkness surrounded Padmé, tugging at the life forces within her. Ben stepped closer. Padmé was crying, yes, but she was also clearly struggling with something else. It took him a moment, but he heard it, almost imperceptible under her sobs.

“Please,” Padmé’s soft, elegant tone was mired with fear and pain, “be with them, please. Force, please. Be with them, protect them. Please, Force. Protect them from this.”

Ben reeled back.

“It was him,” the Vader standing behind him said. Ben was sure that, were it not for the modulator in his mask, the words would have been viciously spat rather than the monotone thing they were. “Palpatine was here, inside her head, taking the will to live from her.”

Ben shuddered.

Padmé knew what was happening and she had reached out to the Force, despite not being Force-sensitive herself, to protect her child - or children, as it were. It was taking every ounce of strength she had.

Wetness on his cheeks made Ben realize he was crying.

He turned to Vader. He wanted to ask him how he had discovered the truth about Padmé’s death. He wanted to ask him if that was what made him turn against the Emperor.

“I will defeat him,” Vader said before Ben could put voice to his questions, “I will turn my son and, together, we will defeat Sidious.”

With that final proclamation, the visions vanished and Ben was thrust from the holocron.

Ben’s hands shook, his body ached and his head pounded. He swallowed against the dryness that had taken residence in his mouth, suddenly parched. Several minutes of trying, in vain, to gain some semblance of control, Ben relented and stood on unsteady legs. Weak and woozy, he stumbled from the closet that would eventually become his bedroom aboard the  _ Falcon _ .

As he pitched down the hall toward the cockpit, Ben kept one arm wrapped around his middle, as though that alone would keep him from throwing up again. He thought he heard the rumble of his name in Shyriiwook but did not stop, or even slow down. He needed to see Padmé. Witnessing her death had been too much. He needed to see for himself that she was alive. He needed to hold her and breathe her in.

In the short, yet harried, time that he had spent with his grandmother, Ben had come to love her fiercely and without reservation. She was precious and he would be damned if he allowed events to unfold that way again. He would save her, no matter the cost.

Even if it meant destroying his own existence.

Ben was no fool. He knew that his parents had met by sheer happenstance. If Padmé lived, it was highly likely neither Luke nor Leia would ever meet Han, which meant that Ben…

It didn’t matter. Ben thought that - and was sure anyone who knew either of them would agree - Padmé’s life was worth more than his own had ever been. If she lived, the galaxy might very well have been better off all around.

He meant to tell her this the moment he came upon the cockpit of the  _ Falcon _ . He meant to sweep her into his arms, tell her he loved her and that he was so, so lucky to be her grandson. He meant to but what he heard once he found himself leaning on the doorway made him forget his original intent.

“I don’t suppose I would have been very good at it, dealing with a kid who has the Force.” Han snorted. “Knowing me, I would have run away rather than try to help and screw everything up."

“You did leave, eventually,” Ben said softly, voice rough and shaking. “But that was always the biggest argument, between me and mom. She wanted me to go to Luke, to learn how to control my power. Me? I didn’t want to go to Luke. I wanted to go with you.”

Leia, Han and Padmé looked over at him. The shock on their faces made him wonder just how pathetic he must look right now. He knew he must still be bearing the physical manifestations of his ordeal inside the holocron.

“The thing is, dad,” Ben continued, hoarsely, his voice breaking, “I always wanted to be just like you.”

Ben’s vision went black and he knew nothing more.

*****

The gentle caress of singing pulled Ben from his dreamless sleep. He knew that voice, and the words that drifted into his ears.

“When the moon is mirrorbright, take this time to remember, those you have loved…”

“Mom?” Ben heard himself murmur and the singing stopped.

A shuddering breath and then, “I...yes.”

Ben opened his eyes, though it was a struggle, and saw both his mother and grandmother sitting on his right. To his left, sat Han. Luke, Lando and Chewy were at the foot of the bed and Ben registered, with some small mortification, that he was lying in the captain’s cabin.

He groaned and muttered, “Anywhere but this, please! I was conceived in this bed!”

He must have been louder than he intended because Lando and Chewy began to guffaw loudly, Padmé joining in after a beat. Leia had turned red and Luke mirrored her embarrassment. Han just looked immensely, ludicrously proud of himself.

Ben sighed. There was something seriously wrong with his family.

Padmé chortled, while trying to speak, “Are you feeling better, darling one?”

Abruptly, everything came rushing back to him and he jack-knifed into a seated position, startling Leia. Ben grappled with the blankets covering him. When he was finally free, he threw himself at Padmé, wrapping her up in his arms and pulling her half onto the bed with him. A sob wretched from him as he held her tight. He buried his face in her hair. A long moment later, he felt Padmé’s fingers running through his own hair and the pressure of another hand, likely his mother’s, on his back made him finally pull away. Padmé frowned at him, wiping at his tears.

“Perhaps I should not have encouraged you to look at that holocron after all,” she said gently, sadly.

“What holocron?” Luke leaned away from the wall, his attention now fully on Ben.

Ben looked down at his hands, which he had settled in his lap after letting go of Padmé.

“My grandfather’s,” he said, then looked back at Luke, then at Leia, “Darth Vader’s.”

“Anakin’s,” Padmé finished for him.

Ben nodded. “I know what happened. I know how he became Darth Vader. And I…” he stopped, his eyes widened. There, just below Padmé’s clavicle, sat the seraphinite, glinting in the low light, making him wonder.

Ben closed his eyes and reached out. Concentrating on Padmé and Padmé alone, he searched. What he found made him smile. Well then, that settled it. He opened his eyes again.

“I know, now, what I have to do,” he said to Padmé, and the room at large, his conviction evident in his tone.

“And,” Leia questioned, “what is that?”

Ben turned to her and smiled. With a small laugh, he said, “well, first, I have to find a way to get into contact with Rey.”

He leapt from the bed but swayed for a moment when a bout of dizziness nearly overwhelmed him. He pushed through it and stepped toward the door. A tug on his sleeve made him stop. Han was holding his arm, eyes searching his beseechingly.

“Whatever it is you’re thinking, kid,” he said, “I can guarantee, from the look on your face, that it isn’t as good an idea as you think it is.”

Ben huffed. He rolled his eyes and replied, “Normally, I would heed your advice, since you know a thing or two about ideas that aren’t as good as they seem but,” he swallowed, “I have to do this. It’s the only way…”

The room was quiet for a moment, then Padmé spoke.

“The only way for what, Ben?”

Ben looked at her, the memory of her death rising up in him once more and stealing his breath for a moment.

“The only way to save the ones I love,” he said and left the room before anyone could respond.

He rushed back to the closet he had opened the holocron in and settled himself on the floor. He crossed his legs, laying his hands atop his knees, palms up. He took several slow, deep breaths, centered himself, and reached out. The thread connecting his Force energy to Rey’s shone brightly in his mind. He latched on it and pulled, hoping. Several long minutes, or perhaps even hours, passed as Ben stroked over the thread, calling for Rey and yearning for a response.

Finally, he felt the tell-tale sensation of sound retreating and the Force bond opening. Fluttering, his eyes opened and he found Rey sitting across from him in a similar pose, shock and then glee lining her face.

Ben took a deep breath, fortifying himself for what he was about to do. Before Rey could utter a single word, he spoke.

“You have to kill Anakin Skywalker,” he said.


	12. Chapter 12: Tremble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to go ahead and post this the same day as Chapter 11 just so the last thing you all read on this would be happy, rather than the heavy, angsty thing of 11.
> 
> Thank you so much for all of the reads, kudos and reviews. I cannot tell you all how much that motivates me to keep going. Thank you so, so much.

**Naboo; 34 ABY**

Rey breathed. Slow. In. Out. In. Out.

This was her third attempt in as many days, trying to reach Ben through their connection. Once Anakin had learned of the Bond, he encouraged her not to give up.

_ “I’ve read, some, about such Bonds,” he had said, “I do know of a few cases in which the Bond partners were able to manipulate their Bonds...to an extent. If you and Ben are able to see and speak to one another across space, what difference would the time-travel make? I know you can do this.” _

Rey smirked. Anakin was reminding her more and more of Ben as the days went on. Though Anakin was a man more fitted to acting than to academic pursuits, he still held great interest for the unique and mysterious. Ben had tended to become something of an adorably talkative nerd when such subjects arose, the few times their Force Bond had allowed such interactions. Rey’s grin widened as she recalled the ancient Jedi text Ben had stolen from her through one of their...sessions. He had then returned it to her a few weeks later, his elegant script now etched in the tomb and speaking to his thoughts, questions and prose over select passages in the book.

Rey knew that what he had marked and the words he had written were all for her benefit and her heart fluttered at the thought.

She shook her head and refocused on the Bond. It flared, suddenly. Through her mental touch on it, she felt a pull, faint and distant but there. Gingerly, she reached out and took the thread firmer in her mental grasp and squeezed, concentrating on Ben. She felt another pull, sometime later, then another. She pulled back and sucked in a breath when all went quiet and the Bond roared to life around her.

She opened her eyes. Ben was seated across from her, legs crossed and hands resting upright on his knees. He looked pale, drawn, but he was alive and he was here!

Rey went to speak, to shout his name in joy, to laugh in glee over the fact that their attempt to contact one another had worked. Ben spoke first.

“You have to kill Anakin Skywalker,” he said.

All of the air in Rey’s lungs escaped in a choked-off cry. She narrowed her eyes at Ben. He looked so sincere, so resolute, that she nearly laughed. She must have looked less than impressed with his declaration because he began talking again, tone as pleading as it had been that night on the  _ Supremacy _ .

“Padmé is already pregnant with my mother and uncle,” he said in a rush, “barely, maybe only a couple of weeks, but I felt it.” He moved out of his sitting position and onto his knees, reaching out to her. “Rey, I saw it. There was a holocron, in Varykino. It belonged to my grandfather. I know, Rey!” His eyes searched hers. “I know what happened. I know how he fell, how he became Vader. I know…” his words came out choked, “I know how Padmé dies.”

Rey steadied her breathing, forcing herself to hear Ben out, even knowing she would never, could never, do what he was asking of her.

“Rey,” Ben’s eyes locked on hers and she flushed, though she wasn’t sure why, “Rey please. If Anakin dies, Padmé lives. She can go to Obi-Wan, he’ll help her hide. She’ll  _ live _ , Rey!”

“So,” Rey began slowly, trying to work out how Ben had decided his grandfather’s murder was the best move forward, “Anakin kills Padmé?”

Ben nodded, cringed and then shook his head. “Well, no. Not really. I mean, choking her couldn’t have helped the situation,” he scratched at his neck, “it was Palpatine. He...I’m not really sure, he reached into her mind, took her will to live from her and she,” he took a shuddering breath, “Padmé used the last of her strength to beg the Force to protect her children.”

Rey blinked. She took a moment to process what Ben had just told her. Anakin choked Padmé? Physically or through the Force? And why? What could have happened to cause him to do such a thing? The Anakin that Rey knew loved Padmé with all that he was. He would never harm her. Not if he was in his right mind. There was something else, there had to be. 

“And why would killing Ani keep this from happening?” She asked.

Ben opened his mouth to respond, then closed it. His brow wrinkled as he narrowed his eyes, clearly thinking. “Well…um…”

Rey rolled her eyes. She was seriously beginning to suspect that single-minded, ill-conceived buffoonery was a trait common in all Skywalker men.

“Ani tried to say the same thing,” she huffed, “after your mother told him what she knew about his fall and Padmé’s death. He tried to tell her, and me, that everything would be better if he died. Tried to get me to help him escape Theed for the countryside so he could just off himself.” She tapped two fingers against Ben’s hand that rested on his thighs. “Good thing he doesn’t know Padmé is already pregnant or my reminder of his children wouldn’t have swayed him to forget the idea.”

Ben seemed to deflate at that. He worried his lower lip between his teeth, obviously deep in thought. A worry struck Rey then.

“Ben,” she said slowly, “if Padmé had lived, your parents…” she looked closely at Ben, who averted his eyes. She took a deep breath. “Ben, they might never have met if Leia and Luke were raised by Padmé. You wouldn’t…” she trailed off, not even daring to breathe the words aloud. The guilty look on Ben’s face made her angry.

“You knew that, though, didn’t you?” She snapped. “You knew that offing Anakin and ensuring Padmé lived would mean you likely would never exist!”

She knelt on her knees, mirroring Ben. Rey raised her arms and took his face in her hands, forcing his eyes back to hers.

“And how did you think that would make me feel, Ben?” She asked, voice shaking in anger. “Did you even think of that? Did it ever occur to you what it might do to me if you suddenly snapped out of existence?”

Ben lowered his eyes to his lap. “I didn’t,” he whispered, “I didn’t think it would really matter.”

Rey gasped, the pain of his words making her heart ache. She closed her eyes, trying to keep the tears at bay. When she looked back at him, Ben’s own eyes were misty as well.

“Ben,” Rey shook her head, shuffling closer, “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

Ben cocked his head to the side, concern and confusion on his brow. “What for?”

Rey sighed. “The  _ Supremacy _ , Ben. What I did to you on the  _ Supremacy _ .” Ben appeared ready to ask more questions but Rey didn’t allow him to speak. “No. I was horrid. I was no better than anyone else. You’d just gained your freedom and there I was, trying to force you into what I thought you should do, not what you wanted to do.  _ Kriff! _ ” She slammed her fists down on her own thighs, sniffling. “I didn’t even give you a chance to just be! I pushed and pushed and forced you to push back and…”

“Rey stop,” Ben grasped her hands in his. He looked at her with awe, a smirk gracing his full lips. “Sweetheart, you didn’t do anything wrong.” She inhaled sharply at the term of endearment, both embarrassed and buoyant at how it made her heart expand in her chest. “I won’t pretend it didn’t rile me, that it wasn’t grating to have you suddenly trying to pull me where I didn’t want to go but…” Ben swallowed. “But you weren’t wrong. I know that now. You would never have forgiven me, and I would never have forgiven myself, if you had taken my hand and we had allowed my mother to die.”

Rey whimpered, her tears finally spilling over.

“Oh Rey,” Ben breathed, fingers moving to wipe the moisture from her cheeks. “I was so lost, so shaken. My head, that had for so long been filled with Dark whispers, was finally empty of everything by my own consciousness. I didn’t know what to do with myself and…”

“And that’s just it, Ben,” Rey pulled herself closer to him, grasping his tunic in her hands, “You were lost and hurting and free and confused and, and…” her voice broke.

“And you did nothing wrong,” Ben reiterated. He settled one hand on her hip, the other tracing a line from her cheek to the back of her neck, nudging her chin up with his thumb. “You were trying to save the people you care about and my ordering a cease-fire was the best way to do that. Asking me to stop the attack on those escape shuttles was the right thing to do and I will not, I cannot, fault you for that.”

Rey’s breaths were coming more quickly, her chest heaving with them, but she felt calmer than she ever had. Her eyes searched Ben’s, noting the warmth in them as he looked at her. Unable to bear it any longer, Rey surged up and forward, connecting her mouth to Ben’s.

He grunted at the force of their mouths meeting before moaning and pulling her closer. He tilted his head and deepened the kiss, coaxing her mouth open with his tongue and stroking along her side with firm touches. Rey sighed into his mouth. She had never felt anything so exquisite, so perfect. Her mind, however, wouldn’t allow her to simply bask in the moment. She broke away, just enough to speak.

“I won’t kill Anakin, Ben,” she whispered and he huffed out a laugh, “I won’t. He is my friend and I care about him.”

Ben laughed louder at that, openly and deeply. Rey was astonished. His wide grin, sparkling eyes, newly visible dimples, slightly crooked teeth and the rich timber rumbling through his body and into her left her off-kilter. She had truly, in all her life, never seen anything so beautiful.

“Of course he is,” Ben said once his laughter had mostly subsided. He carded his hand through the hair that was hanging around her face. “That’s my scavenger,” he murmured, “collecting ugly, broken things and making them worthy of love again.”

For some reason, those words felt more precious and more complimentary than any others she had ever heard to describe her. She launched herself back into Ben’s arms, claiming his mouth with her own for a moment, then pulled back.

“I mean it, Ben, I won’t kill him and I will protect him from anyone that tries, “she said, attempting to sound stern but knowing she had likely failed, thanks to her labored breathing and the arousal coloring her tone.

“Of course, sweetheart,” Ben conceded, kissing her once more, “you’re right. We’ll find another way.”

Relief flooded Rey but, soon, she forgot anything else as Ben kissed her again. And again.

Some time later, Rey found herself straddling Ben’s lap and tugging at his tunic, attempting to take it off of him. Her own tunic had been discarded, along with her breast band, some minutes before and Rey was desperate to feel Ben’s skin against hers. He reached down to assist her and they both broke into quiet laughter as the material got caught on a stray bolt in the wall that wasn’t quite flush with the metal it was embedded in. Finally free of his shirt, Ben tossed it on the floor behind Rey and, using one hand to smooth it out, he lowered Rey onto her back. He hovered over her, looking for all the galaxy like he was trying to hang on to his sanity.

Rey reached up and pushed the hair from his eyes. She let her fingertips trace over his scar, around his beauty marks and down to his lips. She dragged her thumb down, pulling his lower lip with it, and squeaked when Ben nipped the digit with his teeth.

“You are so beautiful,” she whispered and Ben’s eyes widened. He flushed and glanced away, briefly. When his eyes met hers again, Rey sucked in air at the vulnerability in his gaze. “You are, Ben,” she said, more firmly, “you are the most beautiful, masculine, endearingly nerdy, sexiest man I have ever known.”

Ben inhaled a shuddering breath. He ducked his head and spoke lowly, “You are the first, perhaps the only, person to think so. But then, I have a feeling you are not even close to aware of how perfectly gorgeous, strong, intelligent and sexy you are and how much better than me you deserve, so, maybe, you just have bad taste.”

Rey smacked him on the side at that and he let out a laugh. She grinned at him.

“Perhaps we’re both idiots who don’t know our own appeal and yet were lucky enough to fall for the most amazing being either of us has ever met,” she replied saucily, a hot flush spreading over her face and down her chest from the audacity of her proclamation.

Ben grinned, wide and free. “Perhaps you’re right.” He bent to kiss her shoulder, laving his tongue up and over the sensitive spot he had found earlier, just under her ear.

“Perhaps,  _ oh! _ ” Rey moaned and thrust her hips up at the sensations on her delicate neck. Ben groaned, grinding down against her in retaliation. “Perhaps, nothing,” she continued on another moan, “Just agree that I am always right and  _ oh! _ ”

Ben bit her! His teeth dug forcefully, but not painfully, into the curve where her neck and shoulder met. Rey shuddered and let out a pitiful whine when he released his teeth and sucked on the mark he had made. He lifted his head, eyebrow raised and smirk deeper than ever.

“You are always right, sweetheart?” He asked, pointedly.

Rey rolled her eyes. “Fine, maybe not always.” She pouted, then grinned. “But I am right, right now.” At Ben’s questioning look, she lifted her leg, running it up the back of his thigh and curling it around his hips. She bucked her hips again and leaned up to nip at and then whisper into his ear. “And right now, I think you and I are wearing far too many clothes.”

Rey couldn’t believe the things coming out of her mouth. From the way Ben’s jaw dropped, he apparently couldn’t either. His eyes darkened further and Rey shivered. They stared at one another for a moment before, in a flurry of movement, they moved away from one another and began shucking the rest of their clothes. Haphazardly, they threw them in some semblance of a pile that Ben then lowered her back onto, the material protecting her from the cold tile of the floor in her room at the palace in Theed.

They met in a kiss so filthy, so wet, that Rey wondered where the shy virgins she knew they both were had gone. Her hands traced over his shoulders, through his gloriously soft hair, and down his firmly muscled back, landing to rest on the plump ass that she had, admittedly, dreamed about. Ben’s own hands were not idle. They skimmed over her sides and up to cup her breasts, thumbs stroking over her peaked nipples. She whined into his mouth, kissing him harder and silently begging him for more. He had either heard her mental plea or had the idea himself because a moment later, one of his hands left her breasts and smoothing down her stomach, stopping to circle her belly button, and then came to rest just above her mound.

Rey whimpered and thrust her hips up against his hand, hoping to help move it along. Ben laughed into her mouth, breaking their kiss. He grinned at her.

“Something wrong?” He asked, wiggling his eyebrows ridiculously. Yet, somehow, the move was still unfairly sexy.

Rey glared at him.

“Don’t tease, Ben,” she said, then graced him with her own smirk as she brought one of her hands from his ass down and around to take his cock into her grasp.

Ben hissed, thrusting into the hold and took her mouth with his again. He slipped his hand further down and traced a finger lightly around her lower lips before running it back up to the top of her mons, clearly doing so in an effort to learn the shape of her. Rey squirmed.

“Harder,” she panted, “touch me here,” she let go of Ben’s cock and guided his finger to the bundle of nerves he had been seeking but just missing.

Ben groaned into their next kiss and ground his finger against her clit, circling it slowly. Rey let out a squeak at the feeling which was at once too much and not enough. Ben seemed to realize she needed more. He moved away from her and she panicked. Her worry turned to embarrassment, however, when Ben settled himself between her thighs, smirk turned on full and eyeing her with amusement and desire.

“Ben!” Rey exclaimed. “What are you  _ oh kriff! _ ” She shrieked, then slammed her hands down against the floor at the same time she thrust her hips up.

Ben’s mouth was heaven when connected to hers. His mouth was sin incarnate when connected to her down there. Rey couldn’t think of anything but the feeling of his lips curved around her clit, sucking harshly. His fingers had stopped their light explorations and he dipped them, cautiously at first and then more firmly, into her slit. He moaned and she knew she was dripping.

The filthy sounds his fingers made as they slid in and out of her made Rey blush furiously but also took her arousal to new heights. She shifted her hips and pulled her legs up, bracketing Ben’s face with her thighs and meeting his questing fingers with thrusts of her own. Ben moaned against her, sending shockwaves through her core and up her spine. His fingers sped up, fucking her in earnest, and his mouth and tongue redoubled their efforts to suck her soul from her body. He lapped greedily at the juices escaping her cunt, sucked with single-minded purpose on her clit and pushed her hips higher with his shoulders, forcing her to widen her legs.

“Ben!” Rey cried out. She reached down and tangled her hands in his hair, pushing him harder against her. He didn’t struggle, didn’t so much as falter in his attentions, and moaned again. His fingers shifted on the next thrust in and Rey jolted, screaming his name. Whatever he had touched inside of her, he focused on it then, ramming both of the fingers he was using on her against it again and again until she was quivering with agonizing bliss.

Ben lifted his mouth from her. They locked eyes and she shuddered.

“Come for me, sweetheart,” Ben murmured, “Come all over my face, Rey.”

He bent back to her clint and sucked harshly at the same moment he hit that spot inside of her again. Rey shattered. Her body jolted and thrust wildly, thighs clenching around Ben’s head and cunt clenching around his fingers. Pleasure rocketed through her and she knew she had screamed his name as she came. Ben moaned, long and low, his own body shuddering. When Rey finally came back to herself, she looked down to see Ben with his head lying against her thigh, eyes closed. She brushed her fingers through his hair and he looked up at her, lips quirking.

“Come here,” Rey whispered, reaching for him.

Ben rolled up and crawled over her. He took her mouth in a languid kiss, heavy with the scent and taste of her. Rey groaned into his mouth, sucked on his tongue, and reached down to take hold of his erection again. She was shocked to find him soft, though his cock was covered in something wet. Rey broke away from their kiss and looked down. She blinked in astonishment.

“Did,” she swallowed, the very idea of it heady, “did you come? From that?”

She looked Ben in the eye and saw his face and the visible tips of his ears turn red. He shrugged, self-conscious but, at the same time, almost smug.

“I happened to particularly enjoy that,” he said.

Rey laughed and Ben pouted. She brushed his hair behind one ear and kissed him again.

“I’ll take that as a compliment then,” she said against his lips.

Ben grinned at her. “You should.”

He kissed her once more, then arranged himself half on top of her, his head nestled just above her breast and his arm slung over her stomach. Rey wrapped her arm around his shoulder, taking the hand on her stomach into her own and lacing their fingers together. They lay like that for some time, basking in the tremors of pleasure still coursing through them.

The sun was beginning to set when Rey finally broke the silence.

“I think I should take Ani to Ahch-To,” she said quietly. At Ben’s confused hum, she continued. “That’s where...where Luke was hiding out. There’s a temple there and, inside it, a mural. I didn’t give it much thought then but now…”

Rey trailed off, wondering how to put into words what she was thinking.

Ben shifted and looked up at her. “What kind of mural?”

Rey took in a breath and let it out slowly. “It was in the floor, made of tile. It made up the base of a small pool. It was a figure, sitting in meditation position. One half was white, the other black and, surrounding the figure, were black and white on the opposite sides.” She scrunched her nose. “Does that even make sense?” She asked.

Ben, who had once again laid his head on her chest, nodded. His hair tickled her nipple where it fell over her breast. Rey reached down and tucked the strands behind his ear.

“The Prime Jedi,” Ben said. “I’ve seen that same image before, on a scroll on Pilio. Luke and I went there once to find an artifact that he believed could help lead him to the First Jedi Temple, some sort of compass.” He paused, then laughed. “I guess it worked, if what you are describing is the same image. Ahch-To must have been the location of the First Jedi Temple.” 

Rey hummed. “That makes sense, then, with the image I saw.” She shifted until she was lying next to Ben, face to face. “That image haunts me now,” she confessed, “because I keep thinking about it and wondering.” She took a moment to parse through her thoughts. “If that figure was supposed to be the Prime Jedi, the First Jedi, why did he...it?...represent both the Light and the Dark? Because that is what it meant, Ben, I know it. That being, whatever and whoever it was, was both Light and Dark, neither more one than the other.”

A small smile stretched Ben’s lips. “You know, Padmé said something to me, not long after we met, that got me thinking,” he said. “She asked me whether it was possible for one to walk both in the Light and the Dark and not fall to evil. I’ve been thinking about that ever since.”

Rey sucked in a breath. “Balance,” she said, voice soft and knowing, “Padmé was talking about balance within oneself, rather than balance amongst all.” She sat up suddenly and Ben grunted when her elbow connected with his sternum. “That’s what the image in the temple meant too, Ben! Balance isn’t in the Light or in the Dark alone, it is within both and it is within us!”

Ben sat up too, smile widening. “Balance within us.” He repeated. He laughed. “The Jedi had it all wrong. They thought that balance had to come through a collective of Light-siders counteracting the Darkness of the Sith. They were both wrong.” He grasped Rey’s shoulders. “Do you think…”

Rey nodded. “Anakin told me about a prophecy, one that his first master, um, Qui-something, had believed Anakin was supposed to fulfill. A single being that would bring balance to the Force.” When Ben nodded, indicating that he was familiar with the prophecy, she went on. “I think Anakin needs to see that mural, Ben. I think he needs to know that the...the lifestyle...the belief system...that the Jedi are pushing him into is not the right path for him, nor is the one of the Sith that Palpatine is attempting to lure him with.”

Rey took a deep breath and grinned. “Ben, Ani needs to know that his Darkness is not bad, not if he doesn’t allow it to be. He needs to know that he can walk in both the Light and the Dark and still be a good man.”

Ben pulled her into his arms, his face buried in her hair as he breathed her in.

“This is a much better plan than mine,” he said, a cheeky grin on his lips when he pulled back to look at her.

Rey rolled her eyes. “Well of course it is,” she said, “but you need to help Padmé,” she turned serious, “she needs to know how to help Anakin with this.”

Ben nodded and tucked her back into his chest, nuzzling her hair again and planting a chaste kiss on her brow.

“I will,” he promised.

*****

Rey forced herself to keep her pace slow as she walked to the room Anakin was staying in. She was excited. For the first time in a long time, she had a plan. Even better, it was a plan that Ben was not only in agreement with, but one he had helped her devise. She knew her grin was unnaturally wide as she skidded to a stop in front of Anakin’s door. She knocked, then opened the door when Anakin bid her to enter. Stepping inside, she found her new friend sitting in a leatherback chair near the balcony with Leia occupying another chair and a fancy tea set on the table between them.

Leia opened her mouth to speak, then closed it with a snap. Her lips trembled as though she was forcing herself not to smile. She did not succeed and a smirk, eerily like Anakin’s, stole over her mouth.

“I see you were successful in opening your Bond with my son,” she said, tone heavy with glee.

Rey tilted her head in confusion but that only made Leia burst into laughter for some reason. Her eyes seemed to trace over Rey’s neck and Rey realized what was causing Leia’s mirth. She slapped her hand over the spot on her neck that Ben had so thoroughly assaulted, knowing that the bruise there must have been large and bright for Leia to have seen it from across the room. She glanced at Anakin, whose eyes were wide and he, too, quickly fell into laughter.

“That’s my grandson, all right,” he said between heaving breaths.

That only made Leia laugh harder and Rey glared at them both.

“Did you and Ben even take a moment to talk or…” Leia trailed off, falling into a new round of giggles that sounded more befitting of a young girl, rather than a woman her age.

Rey crossed her arms over her chest, still glaring.

“Yes, we did,” she huffed, mouth twitching, though she tried not to smile or laugh herself. “As a matter of fact,” she continued, “we have a plan.”

That got Leia’s and Anakin’s attention and their laughter ceased abruptly.

“Oh? And what did you come up with?” Leia asked.

“I’m going to take Anakin to Ahch-To,” she said, nodding her head once, “there’s something there he needs to see.”

Anakin’s brow furrowed. “Ahch-To? I’ve never heard of such a place.”

Rey stepped closer, intending to explain, when the ground shook. She and Anakin both gasped, waiting for the moment they would, once again, be whisked away.

“Oh my!” Leia exclaimed. Then, she vanished.


	13. Chapter 13: A Double Leia Interlude

**The Millenium Falcon; Approximately 03 ABY**

Leia leaned back into her seat in the lounge, sighing.

When Ben had left them all in the captain’s quarters the day before, she had been worried. Now, she was just tired. Luke had gone after Ben but returned soon after, explaining that Ben had immediately fallen into meditation position and that they shouldn’t disturb him.

The group had dispersed, Han and Chewy going back to the cockpit and Luke going off to take a nap. Lando disappeared somewhere near the gunnery. That left Padmé and Leia to talk. Leia wondered at why Luke had not stuck around to speak with their mother, then realized he had likely left knowing that Leia needed her to herself for a time. Once the two women had gotten through all they could bear emotionally, Leia went to trade places with Luke, needing a nap of her own. Padmé, Leia insisted, had taken the bed in the captain’s quarters and, though she was her mother, Leia felt weird about the idea of sharing it with her and so settled herself on the uncomfortable bench in the main area of the  _ Falcon _ .

Later, after she had awoken, Leia found Padmé and Luke sitting together on the floor in the lounge, playing through a game of sabacc. Luke was clearly losing. Padmé cried out in delight as she won yet another hand and Luke tossed his cards down with a huff. He glanced over at Leia.

“I swear, she has to be cheating,” he groused.

Padmé clicked her tongue at him, perfect posture never wavering as she wagged a finger in his face. “Never accuse a lady of cheating, dear one,” she said, smiling. Luke grinned at her and stood.

They all seated themselves around the table and were soon joined by Han and Chewy. Lando wasn’t far behind and he took up residence leaning against the edge of the booth. Before Leia could ask what their position was or if they even had a plan, Ben walked into the room. Leia took a shuddering breath, ready to reach out to this man, her son, and begin trying to connect with him the way she had confessed she wanted to when she and Padmé had talked. She never got the chance. Han took one look at Ben and burst out laughing.

“That’s my boy,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows and smirking.

Ben sputtered and turned a very interesting shade of red.

“What?” He cried. “How did you even…” he shook his head, hand held up to ward off whatever Han was about to say. “Never mind. You’re Han Solo, of course you would know.”

Chewy growled and Leia blushed. She looked back at Ben.

“He smells like  _ what _ ?” She asked, mortified.

“Sex, princess,” Han was still smirking, looking strangely proud, “our son smells like sex.”

Leia choked on her tongue. Then nearly fell off her seat when Padmé chimed in, her tone dry.

“You were able to reach Rey, then,” she said, fingers brushing against her mouth as though to physically hold back her grin.

Ben’s blush deepened and he scowled at them all.

“If you are quite finished,” he groused, “I need to tell you what Rey and I discussed.”

Han shook with laughter. “Oh? Is that what they call it in your time? Sorry son, I love you but I really don’t want to know what you and your girl,” Han was snorting now, nearly on the floor, his whole body shaking with mirth, “ _ discussed _ .”

Ben scowled at Han, Chewy, Lando and Padmé as they continued to giggle at him. Luke looked as uncomfortable as Ben and Leia decided to put an end to their suffering. She stood and swatted Han, hitting his chest with a dull thud then turned a baleful eye on Chewy and Lando.

“Stop it, the lot of you,” she hissed, “you’re embarrassing him.”

Ben looked surprised, then nodded at her, stiffly. “Thank you, mother,” he said.

Leia’s heart squeezed and she nodded back. Before anyone could say another word, the room was filled with a blinding light. Leia stepped back, shielding her eyes.

When the light cleared, a woman was standing near Ben, looking rather excited and expectant.

“Well,” the woman clapped her hands together and glanced around the room before her eyes landed on Leia, “isn’t this interesting?”

Ben groaned. “You have  _ got  _ to be kidding me.”

Padmé broke into a new bout of giggles and stood. She walked over to the older woman and took her in a brief hug.

“A pleasure to see you again, my dear,” she said.

The older woman looked amused and replied, “Technically, you never stopped seeing me.” She nodded toward Leia.

“What?” She asked.

Ben sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, his other hand on his hip. His stance was tense.

“Mother,” he said to Leia, “Meet yourself.”

Leia’s eyes widened. She looked again at the new-comer and that was when she saw it. The Alderaanian braids. The ring she had inherited from Breha. The eyes that she knew were a perfect, albeit older, more weary, copy of her own.

“When did I get so  _ old _ ,” she muttered, then flinched.

Lando let out a snort.

“I beg your pardon?” Older Leia snapped. She straightened her spine. “Goodness, I never realized I was such a snotty little brat.”

Leia frowned. Next to her, Han barked out a laugh.

“Still the most beautiful woman in the galaxy,” he winked at the other Leia and, much to young Leia’s surprise, the woman flushed.

Then she rolled her eyes. “And I forgot how charming you always thought you were,” she said with a sniff.

“I don’t need this,” Ben was muttering to himself. “What could I have possibly done to deserve this.” He looked up and Leia saw him recoil when his eyes settled on Han. “Oh, yes... _ that _ .”

Older Leia marched over to Ben and yanked him into her arms. Ben let out a startled yelp, then held himself stiffly against the woman, as though her touch was something he had very little familiarity with. The thought made Leia ill.

Ben cleared his throat. “Um, mother?”

Older Leia pulled back and put her hands on Ben’s cheeks, squeezing them together briefly and forcing his lips to purse comically.

“Stop it, Ben,” she said firmly, “nothing is set in stone any more. What you did is no longer a sure thing, remember that.”

Ben’s eyes widened and he glanced back at Han. Tears threatened to escape his eyes and he closed them, nodding at older Leia.

“You’re right,” he whispered, “we can change things.”

Old Leia stepped back and released Ben. She turned to the group, then walked over to Han. Her eyes softened, growing misty. She brushed her knuckles over Han’s jaw, then leaned into him. Han immediately took her into his arms and Leia felt a flare of jealousy. She knew it was absurd, this woman was her, she had no reason to be jealous. Older Leia, once again, was the first one to pull away.

“So cocky, yet so sweet underneath,” she said softly, then laughed. “But not nearly as charming as you think you are.”

“Yes he is,” Leia spoke before she realized what she was saying and she felt her face heat as all eyes turned to her.

Older Leia shook her head at her. “Don’t.” She said knowingly. “Better to keep him in line by denying his allure than to stroke that ludicrously large ego of his,” she said with a smirk.

Leia laughed, knowing her older self was right.

The woman then turned to Lando, squeezing his hands briefly, a smile on her face. She then moved over to Luke and took him into a hug. She whispered something in his ear and Luke paled.

“What?” Leia asked, feeling just as protective of Luke as she did of Han.

Luke grimaced.

“I simply told him that if he ever tried to hurt my boy again, I would string him up by his entrails,” older Leia explained calmly, settling herself into a seat around the table.

Leia blinked in surprise, then looked at Luke with narrowed eyes. Yes, she remembered something Padmé had said about Luke making things worse when it came to Ben. Now, she wondered once again just what that was.

“You...what?” Ben seemed to be choking on air.

Older Leia raised an eyebrow at him. There was a challenge there, one young Leia wasn’t quite sure she understood.

“Ben,” older Leia said, tone testy yet soft and loving at the same time, “If you think for one moment that either your father or I would ever have been okay with Luke raising his saber against you, you don’t know us at all.”

Leia tried to process what she had just heard but a flurry of motion and a cry of pain broke her train of thought. Luke was kneeling on the ground, holding his hand over his left eye. Han was standing over him, chest heaving and face red. Chewy and Lando were holding his arms, keeping him from advancing on Luke again.

“You tried to kill my son?”

Leia had never heard Han so angry; he was ferocious. His body shook with fury. Leia understood all too well. Her own anger was threatening to spill over.

“Ahem,” a soft clearing of the throat brought all attention in the room to Padmé. “Do remember that this Luke is not the Luke that attacked Ben, if you will.”

Han seemed to deflate at that. He turned to look down at Luke, then at Ben. 

Ben gave a stilted, jerky nod. “She’s right. This Luke isn’t the same man that...he isn’t that man, yet. He may never be now.”

Slowly, Han nodded and extended his hand to Luke. Leia watched on bated breath, then released a sigh of relief when Luke took the silent offer of apology and clasped hands with Han. Once on his feet, Luke moved his attention to Ben.

“I don’t know what kind of man I became,” he said, heartache coloring his words, “but I loathe that man for ever hurting you, in any way.”

Something seemed to break in Ben at that moment. The tears that had been hovering in his eyes finally spilled over. Luke let out a cry of surprise when Ben reached out and yanked the smaller man into an embrace.

“You were my hero,” Ben confessed, “well, after dad,” he said on a laugh. He pulled back. “You...I think you feared that the other students would accuse you of nepotism or something if you didn’t keep me at arms length. You were harsher on me than anyone else. I…” Ben shuddered out a breath, “I never felt like I was good enough and that, on top of the nightmares and the voices in my head...I couldn’t bear it.”

Luke’s face crumpled. “I was a horrible uncle,” he said, shaking his head and attempting to back away from Ben. Ben grasped his arms, refusing to let him.

“You were also a great uncle,” Ben said. “You took me with you on your adventures. We sought out Force artifacts and ancient temples together. You taught me so much and...I think...I think you just lost your way. We all lost our way,” Ben glanced around the room. He snorted when his eyes landed on Chewy and Lando. “Well, except for those two,” he said, thumbing at them, “they’ve never changed and probably never will.”

Both Chewy and Lando seemed to puff up at that, pride radiating from them.

“Indeed,” older Leia said, her voice laced with humor, “not even a little bit.”

Older Leia turned back to Ben, eyebrow raised and smirk hovering over her lips. “By the way,” she said, “Rey told me you two...connected...just before I was swept away.” The smirk blossomed as Ben heaved and turned red again.

That reaction set off another round of raucous laughter, this time with older Leia’s added to the mix. Ben turned around and headed toward the door.

“Wait!” Older Leia called, reaching for him. She visibly forced herself to stop laughing. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have. I already teased Rey, I shouldn’t have teased you.”

Ben sighed. “How did you even know?” He asked, turning to her. Suddenly, he looked mortified. “Did she  _ tell  _ you?”

“Kriff no,” Older Leia negated with a shake of her head. Her bantha-shit-eating grin grew. “It was obvious by the, uh, marks you left on her neck.” She gestured toward her own neck, near her where it curved into her shoulder.

Ben’s face was so red at that point, Leia feared he might actually pass out.

“Okay, enough frivolity,” Older Leia said with another clap of her hands. “Let’s get down to business, shall we?” She gestured at Ben who was obviously trying, desperately, to calm down. “Tell us about the plan that you and Rey have come up with. Just what is it you two are trying to accomplish?”

Ben took a deep, steadying breath and began to talk.


	14. Chapter 14: When One Path Must End, Make a New One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have decided to quit smoking. Yay! Also: You idiot, you knew when you started 20 years ago how bad it is! Also: Good for me, it's about damned time!
> 
> This is my second goal in my "Be a Healthier Me" campaign. Already doing pretty well with the losing weight thing. 25 lbs down, another 50 or so to go but I am getting there!
> 
> Fair warning, the first 72 hours after the last cigarette are the worst for headaches, cravings, irritability, trouble sleeping and coughing...so I may not be in the mood to write for at least 3-4 days. Thankfully, I have the rough drafts of the next 3 chapters already written so going over them and adjusting things won't take nearly as long as banging out a fresh chapter.

**Naboo; 34 ABY**

Anakin glanced at Rey. Her face held nearly as much shock as he felt himself but he could see it the moment she rallied herself.

“Well,” she said, vexed, “that was wholly unexpected.”

“Do you think…” Anakin began, waving a hand toward the chair where Leia had been sitting only seconds before.

“Mmmhmm,” she nodded, “I do. But, there is nothing we can do about it now.” She cringed. “But I’m going to have to tell the others. They need to know Leia is...gone, before we leave.” She gestured between herself and Anakin.

Anakin sighed and nodded. He felt like he hadn’t gotten nearly enough time with his daughter, but relented; whatever the Force was doing, shifting everyone around in time, there had to be a good reason for it. He followed Rey out of the room after ensuring his lightsaber was on his belt. Rey rushed them down the hall and descended the stairs, making for the large hangar in which the  _ Falcon  _ sat.

“Rey?” Rose rushed to them, concern on her face.

Anakin quite liked Rose. She had proven to be an intelligent woman of strong conviction and a caring heart. She reminded him of Padmé in that way. The other woman with them, Jessika, was more boisterous and battle-ready than her shorter friend but no less empathetic and open. It was the two men - Poe and Finn, he had learned - that concerned him. It wasn’t so much that they wanted nothing to do with him, it was that, until a day or so ago when they began avoiding him altogether, they had been outright hostile. They had both come into his healing room, glaring and watching him as though waiting for him to suddenly leap from the bed and murder everyone in the palace.

Considering who he was to them, he could hardly blame them and yet their continued distrust in the face of who he was at that moment was grating. Anakin had noticed that Rey’s relationship with the two men seemed highly strained and he wondered if it had anything to do with him. A large part of him hoped not, though he knew that it likely was. After all Rey had done for him, after how readily and easily she had reached out a hand of friendship to him, in spite of his other identity…

Anakin would not deny the deep fondness he held for the young woman and vowed to do whatever it took to make sure she would never regret trusting him.

Rey finished her conversation with the four Resistance members and made her way back to Anakin. The look on her face suggested that her friends had not taken what she had told them well. He raised his eyebrow at her and she shook her head.

“They understand that Leia is gone but,” she sighed, “Finn and Poe refused to agree that you and I should leave. They want us to stay here and so we can figure out what to do now that Leia isn’t here to lead us.”

Anakin nodded. From a tactical standpoint, it made sense. Losing their leader and then the two most powerful members of the group leaving as well would only invite trouble. From a more personal standpoint, Anakin was frustrated. Whatever Rey wanted to show him, he knew it was important, vital even, to what they needed moving forward. A cry of dismay had them both turning toward the open hangar.

“Well, well, what do we have here?” A tall, pale man with slick red hair stood there, surrounded by at least a dozen of the Stormtroopers similar to the ones he and Rey had encountered in Cloud City. The man stepped forward and Anakin was both amused and concerned when Rose let out a feral growl. The man seemed to take her unspoken threat seriously. He stopped walking and, interestingly, raised his right hand to cradle it against his chest, as though to protect it.

“What do you want, Hux?” Poe spat, hand moving slowly toward the blaster strapped to his hip. “Does your Supreme Leader know his guard dog has left his cage?”

The man, Hux, scowled and then his face lightened into something almost jovial.

“I am the Supreme Leader,” he said hastily. He turned to look directly at Rey. “it would seem my predecessor has run off with a charmingly beautiful young woman.”

Anakin watched the man’s glee transform into irritation when Rey didn’t give him the reaction he was clearly hoping for. She merely raised an eyebrow at him and rolled her eyes.

“Yes, she is startlingly beautiful,” Rey agreed, “and I’m sure her husband concurs.” She finished, tilting her head toward Anakin.

Ah, they were talking about Padmé. Anakin let out a huff of a laugh at the thought that this Hux fellow had tried to taunt Rey and insinuate Ben had left her for his own grandmother.

“That she is,” Anakin said, suddenly finding this encounter much more enjoyable.

He saw movement from the corner of his eye. He wasn’t the only one who noticed. Rey stiffened and Anakin saw both Jess and Finn move slightly, angling themselves toward one of the pathways that lead from the palace proper and into the hangar. Jess gave Finn a tiny nod and Finn turned his head slowly to look at Rey. He regarded her for a moment - a long, tense moment - then flicked a smile at her, eyes softening, ever so slightly.

Rey apparently took that as her cue to move. She snagged Anakin by the sleeve and he cringed at the pain her tug caused in his neck, sure she must have given him whiplash.

“Stop!” Hux cried.

Rey’s friends moved, immediately placing themselves between Rey and Anakin and Hux and his men. Blasters moved from holster to hand in an instant.

“Go Rey!” He heard Finn call. “Get yourselves out of here, we’ll hold them off!”

Anakin didn’t need to be told twice, he headed toward the Falcon, intending to board. Rey yanked him back. She shook her head at him.

“No, they’ll need the Falcon to get away from the First Order,” she said, then looked around. A pleased grin stole over her face. “Come on,” she said and pulled him in the other direction.

As they were running past her friends, Rey stopped suddenly and whirled around. She threw her arms around Finn, distracting him from the firefight and tugging him down behind the durasteel counter the group had been using as a shield. She said something to him, hugged him once more, and then ran to rejoin Anakin. Together, they raced across the hangar toward a sleek black transport parked just outside one of the hangar bays. As they raced up the ramp, Anakin heard the sound of several dozen pairs of boots marching into the hangar.

“Cease fire,” a stern voice called out, “The First Order has violated Naboo’s position as a neutral planet. Leave at once or we shall be obligated to respond with force.”

Anakin grinned. The Naboo, though a people of peace, were also a force to be reckoned with and they didn’t take kindly to those who would necessitate resorting to violence. Hux and his band of Troopers wouldn’t know what hit them. Still, Anakin was a fighter himself and he couldn’t resist shoving, just a little, with the Force and sending Hux and his Troopers to the ground.

Anakin hurried into the cockpit of the small transport, taking up the co-pilot’s seat and helping Rey to get the controls switched on. They ran through the launch sequence together as though it was one time out of a thousand that they had done so, in spite of the fact that they had never flown together and neither one had ever flown a ship like this one. Once they were off the ground and headed toward atmo, Anakin looked around. He wrinkled his nose at the sterile, impersonal ship.

“Ben’s command shuttle,” Rey offered, “Though I don’t think he much cares for it. This is just a generic First Order ship. It is nothing like his fighter, which he designed himself.”

“Kriff,” he said in disgust, “this thing almost makes me prefer the  _ Falcon _ .”

Rey let out a barking laugh that didn’t end until well after they had reached space.

*****

It was just over a day’s travel to Ahch-To from Naboo, according to Rey, and she had apparently decided to use the time to foist lessons on the ancient Jedi upon Anakin. Not that he minded, he supposed, though scholarly work was not exactly his area of expertise, no matter how interesting.

“What are these here?” He asked her, indicating the writing that appeared newer than anything else. The same handwriting that had been on several other pages in the text Rey had pulled out to show him.

A small smile graced her face and she reached out to trace, almost lovingly, over the elegant script.

“Ben,” she said softly, then looked up at him. “These notes were written by Ben. He...took the book from me once, through our Force Bond. When he returned it, some weeks later, he had marked several passages and these notes were added.” Her voice softened even further. “He did it for me.”

Anakin looked back at the delicate calligraphy, awed at his grandson for having mastered such an ancient and almost lost art. It wasn’t just the penmanship itself that held Anakin’s admiration, the words themselves, along with their meaning, were something of an art as well. Ben had a very large, very impressive vocabulary and his insights on the text were far more advanced and philosophic than Anakin could even follow, try as he might. Rey seemed to read his mind. She chuckled, still following the letters with her finger.

“I know,” she said, “while the parts I have been able to understand are amazingly insightful, the rest is just gibberish to me. In spite of that, I have no doubt that what Ben was trying to say is just as incredible as the parts I can parse out.”

Anakin turned the page and found it marked, as others had been. The symbol that covered that majority of the parchment was one with which he had no familiarity. In the margins next to it, Ben had written  _ ‘The emblem of an ancient Force Order, name unknown, likely a precursor to the “modern” Jedi.’ _ Anakin hummed in mild interest but, unable to read the original script that sat below the picture, he moved on.

Rey, apparently, was losing patience and moved around him, reaching out to flick through the pages at a faster pace. When she finally landed on the one she wanted, Anakin took a sharp breath in.

“What is this?” He asked, looking up at her.

Rey grinned, positively vibrating with excitement.

“He is called the Prime Jedi,” she said and moved her hand over the page, pointing to various aspects of the symbol as she spoke. “He is both Light and Dark” she pointed to the being in the center and his two, contrastingly colored sides, “and he is surrounded by the Light,” she poked at the white area that blanketed the Dark side of the figure, “and the Dark,” she pointed at the Dark area that blanketed the Light side of the figure. “And within the Light and the Dark,” she gestured to the two small circles of contrasting color within the spaces surrounding the figure, “Light and Dark again.”

Rey sat back in her seat, eyes glowing with eagerness.

“Ben and I believe that symbol represents what the Force, and all Force-sensitive beings, is supposed to be,” she took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment before looking at him again. “Balance has to begin within each individual. When people are Balanced and the Force is Balanced within them, everything else around them begins to Balance.”

Anakin looked down at the drawing again. Slowly, an idea began to form. He locked eyes with Rey.

“One cannot be Balanced if they do not walk in both the Light and the Dark,” he suggested and felt pleased at her confirming nod. “Calling on only the Light, or only the Dark, naturally makes one unbalanced and causes the Force around them to be unbalanced as well.”

“Exactly!” Rey exclaimed. “The Jedi, for all the good they may have done, were wrong, Ani. If you were truly meant to be the one to bring Balance to the Force, denying the Darkness in you, attempting to cut it out, only prevents you from fulfilling that purpose.” She reached over and covered his hands with her own. “You are not evil, Anakin, no matter the Darkness in you. By learning to embrace it, to control it, you can find what you are meant to be; the Balance in the Force.”

Anakin mulled that over. The idea brought him great relief. The thought of not having to deny a part of himself, a part he had been struggling with his entire life, was heady and he latched onto it greedily. But...what of when he died? What then? He looked back at Rey, considering.

“I don’t think that is what the prophecy meant, Rey,” he said slowly, his thoughts jumping around in his head, a larger picture slowly emerging. He did not expand or explain what he was thinking, just nodded to her. “I think there is something else, something more, to it and I think you are right. I think Ahch-To might have the answers, if it is the location of the First Jedi Temple, as you stated.”

Rey considered him for a moment, somewhat deflated at his negation, but finally gave him a small smile.

“Then we will talk more once we land,” she said and turned back to the controls.

*****

Anakin watched with interest as Rey expertly guided the shuttle down to the rocky surface of the large island.

“You are an excellent pilot,” he complimented.

Rey flushed. “Thank you,” she said.

Anakin cocked his head at her, curious. “Where did you learn to fly?”

Rey gave a startled laugh. “Um, I taught myself,” she replied, fidgeting.

Anakin was even more interested now, her embarrassment making his curiosity explode.

“What kind of ship did you learn in?” He asked her, then offered. “Honestly, I learned in a race speeder, and later a fighter jet on Naboo.”

Rey graced him with a smirk. “A simulator helmet.”

Anakin gawked at her. “Excuse me? Did you just say you learned to fly using a simulator helmet?”

Rey shrugged, “I found it in the desert while scavenging one day. Took it back to my AT-AT and got it to turn on.”

Anakin couldn’t believe it. She had learned to fly using nothing but a simulator helmet? “Controls?” He asked.

Rey shook her head. “I looked for them but they were long lost to the sands. I just,” she brought her hands up in front of her, mimicking holding a steering apparatus, “pretended.” She finished with another shrug.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Anakin breathed. “That is extremely impressive. So what was the first ship you flew?” He asked her as they moved from the cockpit and down the loading ramp.

Rey smirked at him. “The  _ Falcon _ ,” she said and laughed when he tripped in surprise.

“You flew, your very first time in a real ship, a Corellian class freighter?” He exclaimed.

“Uh-huh,” Rey’s grin wided, “Finn and I were trying to escape the First Order on Jakku. I had decided on a Cloud Jumper but, um, it was destroyed...boom!” She threw up her hands and Anakin laughed. “Finn suggested this ugly old freighter that had been wasting away under the desert sun for years and I...well, I had no other options at that point.”

Anakin shook his head in wonder. This woman was remarkable. Humble, kind and remarkable. It filled him with untold joy to know that his grandson, though he didn’t know the kid, had managed to find someone as truly special as Rey. His amusement vanished when he looked up. With a frown, he looked at his companion.

“I hate stairs almost as much as I hate sand,” he said, fully aware of how whiny he sounded and not caring one bit.

Rey laughed at him, a free, flowing thing and Anakin felt his small irritation melt away. With a sigh, he gestured for Rey to precede him and, together, they began the ascent to the Temple she insisted was at the top of the small mountain.

Twenty minutes into the climb, Rey received a comm. The others had managed, with the help of the Naboo, to drive Hux and his soldiers back. The Queen had encouraged them to leave post-haste and had ensured them that her fighters would not allow Hux to follow them. Anakin felt Rey’s relief as starkly as he felt his own.

Thirty minutes into the climb and Anakin was ready to toss himself off one of the many cliffs that scattered over the side of the mountain. In spite of the cool temperature, he was sweating. Rey, blast her, didn’t look so much as winded. Not a hair was out of place and the only moisture on her skin was from the light mist that assaulted them occasionally. Anakin pulled at his jerkin and finally yanked it off, tossing it aside and not caring if it was lost. The leather barrier gone, he took a deep, freeing breath, feeling much lighter and much cooler than before. Just as he was about to suggest stopping for a moment, they rounded another bend and before them stood a simple, inconspicuous opening in the side of the mountain.

“Here we are,” Rey said, sweeping her arm toward the mouth of what looked to be nothing more than a cave.

Anakin raised an eyebrow at her.

“This is a temple?” He asked dubiously.

Rey nodded emphatically. “Nothing so grand as your temple back home, I’m sure,” she said, “but then, this one is much, much older.” With a jerk of her head toward the cave, Rey motioned them to continue inside.

Entering the cave, Anakin realized he had severely misjudged it. It was no cave but, truly, a temple. A temple imbued with the Force. A closed his eyes and let the rawness of it flow over him. When he opened his eyes again, Rey was watching him, knowingly.

“I didn’t understand it,” she said quietly, “the first time I came in here. I could feel it, it was almost comforting and, at the same time, invigorating, but I didn’t know what it was until after my first lesson with Luke. He had me...reach out,” she laughed, “and that was when I understood.”

Anakin nodded and stepped down from the platform at the entrance and into the room. Though not large or grand, it was most certainly one of the most beautiful places he had ever been. He could almost taste the history here, could almost grasp in his hands the ancient power that resided in every crack, in every crevice. The small pool at the center of the room drew his attention. Rey was already sitting next to it, staring into its depths. Anakin moved to join her.

At the base of the pool, he saw the same picture from the text Rey had shown him. The Prime Jedi, surrounded by and emitting Balance. Anakin reached out and lay his hand just above the shallow water, not touching. The mosaic stared back at him, calling to him.

“You can hear it, can’t you,” Rey whispered. “The Force, it’s...it’s almost as though…”

“Yes,” Anakin said, finally dipping his fingers into the water. They watched the small ripples his touch created, quiet and contemplative.

Anakin scanned his eyes over the entire picture, again and again, as though he could read it. His eyes drifted from the top of the being’s head to the outer circle and around the ledge of the pool. A sparkle of something caught his eye and he tilted his head.

“What’s that?” He asked Rey as he sat on his knees, crawling around the pool to the other side. There, in the pool wall and directly above the tip of the lightsaber the figure was holding, was a small metal object embedded in the stone.

Anakin reached into the water, dragging his fingers over the object. His fingertip caught on a ridge and he pulled. A great, thunderous noise rang through the cavern. The scrap of stone against stone grated on Anakin’s ears and he saw Rey shiver. They both stood, watching as the wall to the left of the entrance slid open, revealing a set of stairs that led down, below the temple. 

“Oh,” Rey said, eyes wide, “Luke definitely didn’t know about this.”

Anakin and Rey shared a look and then, excited grins in place, they scrambled toward the opening. Rey’s laugh echoed through the temple cave, bouncing off the walls and tumbling down the newly revealed passage. Her joy was infectious and Anakin joined in.

When they reached the top of the stairs, Anakin stopped Rey from descending with his hand on her arm. He pulled his saber from his belt and ignited it.

“Looks dark down there,” he said with a shrug. He was thrown when Rey pulled her own saber, his saber, from her holster and lit it as well.

“Ah,” he said, “forgot you had that.”

Rey had explained to him how she had come to possess his lightsaber. He knew she was leaving a few things out though. Her tale about fighting his grandson in the forest on Starkiller, and what led to it, had been glossed over.

He pushed the thoughts away and focused on what they were doing. The staircase was ancient and some areas had crumbled away. Cautiously, they moved down the steps, testing each one before putting their full weight on them. Rey was about a step ahead of Anakin and when she went to test the next step, the rock underneath her gave way and nearly twenty of the steps fell to the darkness beneath them. Her shriek cut off abruptly as Anakin reached out and yanked her up. He set her next to him and they both looked down at where the rock had been.

“What now?” Rey asked him, worrying her hands together, saber off and tucked under her armpit. Anakin flinched at the nonchalant way she treated his saber.

He regarded her for a moment, wondering if she was serious. “We jump.” He said, as though it was obvious.

“What?” Rey exclaimed, eyes wide and studying him as though he was an idiot. “That is a jump of at least fifteen feet and this staircase is barely two feet wide with a scraggly wall on one side and nothing on the other! We could fall so easily and we don’t even know how much further down the floor is!”

Anakin blinked, shocked. He narrowed his eyes at Rey, studying her. Finally, he gave her a soft smile.

“I keep forgetting you are untrained,” he said, “especially since you are so powerful. Here,” he held out his hand and she took it. “Close your eyes and reach out. Feel the Force around you, settle yourself in it, and jump. Trust the Force to guide you safely to the other side. Allow it to lift you. Allow it to settle you once you reach the next step.”

Anakin sucked in a breath as the Force began to swirl around and through them, stirred by Rey’s control of it. Her power was like nothing he had ever felt before, so much Light and, yet, with a heavy vein of Darkness running through it. Anakin was reminded of the mosaic in the pool. He wondered if Rey had any idea how strong in the Force she was. The Force settled and Rey gave Anakin a quick nod before she turned and jumped, landing easily far below him. Anakin waited until she had grinned up at him, moving gingerly to the next step, freeing the landing for him, and then he jumped as well.

Rey had re-ignited her saber and with both of their sabers pointed toward the bottom, they realized that they were almost to the end of the staircase.

“Let’s go,” Rey whispered and they traversed the last of the stairs.

They landed in a small antichamber with nothing but a single, wooden door in the circular space. The same picture as the mosaic was carved into the small door, words etched into the wood just over it. Anakin did not recognize the style of writing but Rey made a sound of excitement. She thrust her saber at Anakin and reached into the satchel at her side. She pulled one of the ancient texts from it, the one Ben had written in, and opened it to a page near the one with the image of the Prime Jedi.

“Here,” she said, “holding the book where they could both see it. The same markings as the ones on the door stared back at them.

“I can’t read it, Rey,” he whispered, reluctantly.

“Me either,” she responded, then tapped that familiar elegant handwriting, “But Ben figured it out.”

Anakin looked at his grandson’s note, scrawled in the margin of the page.

_ “Writing bears striking resemblance to Wookie alphabet, possibly the precursor to Shyriiwook. The Zeffo, possible race of the Prime Jedi, had close ties to the homeworld of the Wookie. Translation based on this supposition: ‘Without the Light, the Dark overwhelms; without the Dark, the Light becomes a burden; As in all things, Light and Dark must coexist. Within all beings; Dark and Light must Thrive.’” _

“Well,” Anakin huffed out a laugh, “I guess that settles it. You and Ben were certainly on to something.”

Rey nodded, suddenly looking sad.

“Rey?” Akakin settled a gentle hand on her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

Rey shook herself and offered him a small smile. “Just thinking that…”

Anakin understood. “You were just thinking that Ben should be here. That he should be discovering this, whatever it may turn out to be, with you.”

Rey gave a wet laugh, her eyes moist. She wiped at them and shrugged. “Yeah, but as far as company goes, I’m glad you’re here, even if he couldn’t be.”

Anakin decided to take that as a win. He wasn’t let down that Rey would rather Ben was here over him. Truth be told, Anakin would always choose Padmé’s company over all others so he couldn’t blame Rey one bit.

“Well,” he said, “let’s at least find something interesting then, so you’ll have a great story to tell him.” He winked at her and her melancholy vanished.

“Right,” Rey said, “Should we open the door?”

Anakin affirmed the idea with a dip of his chin and they approached the remarkably well-preserved wood. There was no handle, latch or any other mechanism that he could see. Confused, he laid his hand on the door, right over the figure’s hands where it held the saber. Rey, as though in a trance, reached out as well and set her hand just above Anakins. Together, they nudged at the Force and the sound of a metal release reached their ears. The door cracked open and they pushed it into the room beyond, watching it swing wide.

“What in the Force?” Anakin breathed.

Next to him, Rey sucked in a lung-ful of air, obviously as shocked and disturbed as he was.

There, in the small circular chamber, sat a being, motionless and wielding a lightsaber, the ignited blade glowing eerily in the otherwise empty room.


	15. Chapter 15: Closer to the Edge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...those twitter Reylo AU prompts. You know the ones. Someone posts a picture or group of pictures and says, what AU is this? I usually ignore them as best I can b/c I know, I KNOW!, I won't be able to resist writing it if I come up with something.
> 
> This time I couldn't resist.
> 
> I'll post more on it later.
> 
> That said, on with the show!

**The Millenium Falcon; Approximately 03 ABY**

Padmé listened attentively as Ben recounted his conversation with Rey, no doubt leaving a few more...personal things out. She found her gaze shifting, however, often. From Ben, to her daughter as a young woman to Luke to her daughter as an older woman and back. She noticed that neither Leia could not keep their eyes off of Ben, gazes drinking him in. He was quite impressive, Padmé thought. Confident in his explanations of their belief in the Force prophecy concerning Anakin and the Balance he was meant to bring. His knowledge of the Force was far beyond what Padmé could follow and she knew she wasn’t the only one struggling to keep up.

“I don’t understand,” Luke spoke up, “what do you mean by ‘walking’ in the Light or Dark?”

Ben worked his mouth. When he responded, his words came slowly and with great care.

“The idea that Force-sensitive beings are able to use the Force, the earliest Jedi took to calling it ‘walking’, because the idea was that Force users should live their lives according to the tenants of the Jedi. It stems from the view that one walks through life, walks the passage of time, rather than standing or sitting still. When you walk, you are moving. To walk in the Force means you are always moving within it, learning and growing.”

Ben looked frustrated and Padmé could tell he wasn’t pleased with the explanation but didn’t know how to word it in a way that would convey what he wanted while still being understandable to the rest of them. Luke, however, nodded as though he understood, though there was still a vein of confusion along his brow.

“And you think that if Ani learns how to control the Darkness within him, learns how to use it without letting it control him, he will be able to bring about this balance,” Padmé asked.

Ben opened his mouth to answer, shut it and furrowed his brow, then responded, “Yes, or, at least, that’s what Rey and I have come up with.”

“Makes sense to me,” Han said, folding his arms behind his head and leaning back in his seat.

“That makes sense to you?” Young Leia questioned dubiously, pushing Han’s leg where it was crossed over his other knee.

“Sure,” Han said, smirking. “How can anything be balanced if it is only one thing or the other? Gotta be both, have both, right?”

Padmé laughed at the consternation on Ben’s face. “Of course he would be able to explain it so simply. Kriff, why do I even try?” he muttered.

Han smirked at Ben and shrugged. “It’s a gift, kid.”

Ben rolled his eyes and looked away from his father, choosing instead to look at Padmé.

“I need to teach you,” he said. “You may not be Force-sensitive but you can still learn how to recognise when Anakin is falling too far to the Darkness or straying too far into the Light. When I was in the holocron visions, your presence was one of the only things that kept Anakin grounded. Obi-Wan, to an extent, also had that effect, though not as consistently or as strongly.”

Padmé considered this. She knew that Anakin was growing increasingly tense every time he returned from meetings with the Jedi council and his demeanor after meeting with Palpatine was downright scary at times. Padmé turned her thoughts to the questions that had been stewing in her the last several days, more-so since her talk with young Leia.

“Who is the emperor?” She asked.

Ben hesitated. No one else spoke up.

“Ben,” Padmé stood, setting her mug of caf aside, “who is the emperor?”

Ben sighed. “Sheev Palpatine,” he relented.

Padmé felt as though she had been punched in the stomach and yet...and yet, it made perfect sense. Palpatine’s actions in the Senate were growing increasingly worrying and his interest in Anakin had bothered both Padmé and Obi-Wan for quite some time. She looked at Ben.

“Teach me,” she said, firmly.

*****

“Meditation is the foundation of maintaining and growing control in the Force for a Jedi,” Ben explained. “But many of the Sith also practiced meditation as a means to center themselves in the Force. My former master, Snoke, never saw much need for meditation, going so far as to discourage it in favor of more...physical...means of finding balance.”

Padmé listened intently, watching as Ben settled himself a little more into his seated position on the floor. She knelt down and made to copy him, crossing her legs and settling her hands, palms up, on her knees. Ben nodded at her in approval.

“Anakin needs to meditate but,” he continued, “I think that having you there to ground him, to keep him aware of his ties to the Light, will help him as he attempts to traverse the Darkness within him. I think that you should meditate as well. Though you won’t be able to draw from the Force, the calm you obtain from meditation will be palpable to him and will help guide him through his own mediation.”

“Okay,” Padmé said, “and how do I meditate? What do I do?”

Ben closed his eyes and she did the same. She heard him inhale, steady and deep, before letting the breath out just as slowly. Padmé took in a breath, focusing on it and found herself relaxing on the exhale. She heard Ben take another breath and did the same. For several minutes they sat there, breathing slow and deep and Padmé found herself thinking of nothing but the air she was taking in, the expansion of her lungs and the way her chest fell as she breathed out.

“Good,” Ben’s voice startled her, quiet though it was. “Breathing, focusing on only that, is the first step to learning how to meditate. As you grow more accustomed to it, you’ll find yourself able to fall into that same trance you were just in without having to focus on your breathing. Your mind will learn to quiet itself automatically, though it will take time and a lot of practice to get there.” He moved his hands to hers and she clasped them in her own. “When you meditate with Anakin, keep a hold on him in some way. Hold his hands, press on his arm, sit closely enough that your knees touch. You could even sit behind his and allow your backs to brace one another. Just touch him, in some way, let him feel you.”

Padmé nodded.

“When should we meditate?” She asked.

Ben smiled. “Whenever you want, but do it often. Any time Anakin appears to be growing restless, any time his anger seems to be climbing. In the morning, at night, the middle of the day. It doesn’t matter, really,” Ben released her hands and leaned back, “just so long as you do it.”

“Okay,” she said. “What else?”

Ben stared at her for a moment. His eyes flicked over her face, studying her.

“Why?” He asked. “Why do you love him?”

Padmé was more than a little surprised at the question. She could tell Ben didn’t mean it to be an insult to Anakin, just that he was curious. She paused in responding to consider her answer.

“When Ani and I first met,” she began, “I was Queen of Naboo and he was but a boy. We worked together, along with Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon Jinn, may his soul be at peace, to save my people and planet from the Seperatist faction that had set up a blockage in our atmo. Their intent was to force the Senate to bow to their demands.”

Ben nodded. “Yes, I remember that from the one lesson my tutor was able to give me about you.”

Padmé smiled. “Ani and I did not see one another again after that for just over ten years. When we met again, he was assigned to protect me. A reasonably serious threat of assasination had been discovered against me and Ani and I were shipped to Naboo to wait things out.”

Ben cringed at that and Padmé made a small sound of inquiry.

“I, uh, saw a touch of that in the holocron,” he admitted, “apparently, my grandfather’s idea of romance is complaining about sand.”

Padmé couldn’t help it, she let out a peal of laughter, remembering all too well the awkward attempts of her dear Ani to sway her with his affections. Padmé wondered what else Ben had witnessed in the holocron memories and, when she asked, was delighted to see him turn a burning red. Her delight morphed into horrified embarrassment when he replied.

“Let’s just say no one wants to see their grandparents doing  _ that _ .”

Padmé choked on her tongue, a sound very much unlike anything she had ever made bubbled up in her throat. She coughed.

“Ah, well,” she hummed, “I suppose that’s what I get for teasing you about Rey earlier.”

Ben’s ears were glowing with his blush and he kept his eyes resolutely away from hers.

“Let’s just pretend we never had this conversation, that I never saw that in the holocron, and move on,” he said, voice strangled.

Padmé nodded her head, eagerly. Anything to get past the humiliation she suddenly felt over knowing her grandson had seen herself and Anakin in the throws of passion.  _ Kriff! _

She cleared her throat and continued where she had left off. “It took some time and I had a lot of misgivings about starting a relationship with him. For one, he had taken the oath of a Jedi which meant any sort of romantic attachment was forbidden. I could not reconcile the thought of being the one to make him break his vows with his insistence that it was his choice to do so. For another thing, I was a Senator, already in a precarious position due to the threats against me, and beginning a romance at that time just...it didn’t seem like the best idea.”

Padmé thought back to those early days, just a few short years ago and yet it felt like another lifetime.

“And then Obi-Wan was captured,” she said, voice lowering, “Ani and I, we went after him, against the orders of the Jedi council.”

“The First Battle of Geonosis,” Ben confirmed, “I read about that as well.”

It struck Padmé then, that everything that had happened in her lifetime was all ancient, to borrow a phrase, history to Ben. She suddenly felt very sad.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Ani and I nearly died that day. I think it was then that I realized how deeply I had fallen in love with him. For all of his faults, for all of the things that he has done that I,” she squinted, searching for the right word, “that I hate,” she landed on, knowing it was the most honest thing she could say, “I still love him. He is kind and caring, particularly invested in protecting those he loves. He’s intelligent, he’s handsome,” she laughed at the look on Ben’s face, “I cannot explain it with words, dear one.”

Ben nodded, looking contemplative. His hand rose to his mouth, fingers tracing his lips and Padmé understood.

“You wonder why Rey cares for you,” she said. “In spite of the things you have done as Kylo Ren.”

Ben looked down at his lap, humming an affirmative.

Padmé reached out and laid a hand on his arm. “Look at me, Ben,” she pleaded, “you are not like Anakin. I will be honest, Ani is arrogant, self-involved and stubborn to a fault. He always thinks he is right and is quick to anger when opposed. I am not blind to his short-comings but I love him in spite of them.”

Ben lifted one shoulder in acknowledgement of her proclamation.

“But you,” she continued, “you are kind and caring. You have empathy for others and from what you’ve told me about your interactions with Rey, you are not hesitant about showing your feelings for her through your actions. I would bet,” she said, lips curling into a smile, “that Rey fell for you because of your soft Ben Solo heart, because it is more powerful, more potent, than the Darkness of Kylo Ren.”

Ben sighed. “Perhaps…” he said. He straightened then and cleared his throat. “We should move on to other methods you can use to help Anakin.”

Padmé patted Ben’s arm. “Okay,” she said.

They spent the next hour discussing different techniques Padmé could use to help settle Anakin when they were in situations that would make meditation unrealistic. She told him how she would often take Ani’s hands in her own, holding them as they spoke and how that seemed to help reign in his temper and frustration. Ben suggested adding to the touch, allowing her fingers to move over his hands. The added stimulus would keep Anakin’s mind on their connection and help draw it away from his volatile emotions.

A knock on the door to the storage closet they were using broke Ben’s explanation of lightsaber forms and how moving through them could work as a form of physical meditation. Padmé filed that information away for later and stood as Ben called for whomever had knocked to enter.

“Hey kids,” Han said when the door swooshed open, “We’re about to reach D’Qar. Leia said there’s a small band of Rebellion fighters there that could give us shelter for a while.”

Ben nodded and he and Padmé followed Han back to the cockpit of the  _ Falcon _ .

Entering the space, Padmé moved to sit with her daughter...daughters? Having two of the same person in one space was more than a little disconcerting. She sighed. Time-travel was annoyingly confusing at best and downright frustrating at worst, especially since none of them had any sort of control of who went where and when.

Just as the thought passed through her mind, the floor under her shuddered. She, Ben and older Leia looked to one another, likely wondering the same thing. Who, where and what now?

Padmé closed her eyes against the light and hoped that, at the very least, she would remain with Ben.

The smell of salt-water and the sound of waves hitting rock forced her eyes open. Ben was still with her, she was relieved to see, as was older Leia.

“Where are we?” Ben asked.

“I’m not sure,” Leia said, slowly turning to take in the view.

Padmé looked around as well and was startled to see something familiar.

“Ben!” She exclaimed. “Look!”

Ben turned and followed her arm, gaze landing on what she had spotted half-way down the cliff they were standing on.

“That’s my command shuttle!” He cried. “What in the kriff is it doing here?”

He froze, then, and reached out to clasp hands with Leia.

“Do you feel that?” He whispered.

Leia squeezed Ben’s hand and nodded. “That...that feels like…”

“Rey!” Ben shouted. He let go of Leia’s hand and broke into a run, leaping over rocks and hurtling himself up the side of the hill. “Rey!”

“Ben, stop!” Leia called. Softer, she grumbled. “That boy, I swear. I’m getting too old for this.”

Padmé laughed. “You can both feel Rey here?” She asked, excited at the prospect that she might finally get to meet the young woman who had so captured her grandson’s heart. And Ani! Ani was likely with her!

Padmé understood Ben’s haste, then, but forced herself to keep her pace slow enough for Leia to keep up with her. Atop the hill, Ben had stopped, and waited for him. Padmé could tell he was more than anxious to keep moving but wait for them he did.

“His manners are certainly impressive,”Padmé commented to Leia as they huffed and puffed their way up the hill. “As badly as he wants to go to Rey, he is still gentleman enough to wait on his dear old grandma and mother.”

Leia’s peal of laughter followed them up the hill. When they reached Ben, he took Leia’s arm, offering her support. He held out his other arm to Padmé but she waved it away. The three of them kept going and a stone staircase came into view, shortly. Fortunately, it was only a few meters to the top, where there appeared to be the opening of a cave. Still, Leia eyed the stairs with honest loathing.

“I hate stairs,” she muttered.

Padmé broke into a full-on laugh at that. “Oh! You sounded so much like Anakin just now!”

Leia flushed, then huffed. “Well, shall we?” She asked brusquely, moving to the staircase and pulling Ben with her.

Still laughing, Padmé took up the rear.

At the entrance to the cave, they hesitated. Ben was the one who finally took the step to enter and Padmé was pleasantly surprised by what they found inside.

“This is a temple,” Ben said, awed. He walked over to a small pool of water in the floor. What he saw made him gasp. “This is the First Jedi Temple! That is the Prime Jedi!” He said, pointing to the mosaic in the floor of the pool.

Padmé leaned over to look at the picture. Then moved back to let Leia see. After a few minutes, Padmé began to grow worried. While her daughter and grandson seemed wholly enchanted by the mosaic, she had spent her time looking around and she quickly realized that neither Anakin nor Rey were there.

“Where are they?” Padme asked.

“What?” Ben looked up from his perusal. “Oh!” His eyes traced over the room. They stopped on a wall to the left. “There,” he nodded, “I can feel her behind that wall. I think…” he moved toward the wall and ran his fingers along what appeared to be a shadow. The shadow gave way as Ben pushed, revealing that piece of wall to be a door.

The stairs that were revealed made Padmé nervous. They did not look very sturdy, or safe. Still, if Anakin was down there, down there she would go.

“You two stay here,” Ben ordered and both women immediately cried out at him.

“Certainly not!” Said Leia.

“Absolutely not! I am going!” Padmé said.

Ben sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose and rested his other hand on his hip.

“It’s too dangerous for either of you to try to climb down a staircase older than the stars themselves in the dark,” he gritted out.

Leia levelled Ben with a look so chastising, Padmé cringed on his behalf.

“Young man,” Leia said, “I am still your mother and I will not be left behind. Now, light that monstrosity of yours and let’s go.”

Astounded, Ben could only nod as he pulled his lightsaber from his belt and set it aglow. Padmé shivered at the crackling noise it made. It was...angry...she thought. Unstable.

Leia gave the saber a wide berth and Ben seemed to crumple in on himself. Padmé did not stop to wonder at that little interaction. Ben’s own confessions of having done horrid things and his reaction to seeing Han gave her enough idea of what sort of violence that saber may have committed.

When she stepped past the doorway and onto the first step, Padmé realized Ben may have been right. Nervously, she followed Ben and Leia, the latter holding tightly onto the arm of the former. When Ben suddenly stopped with a swear, Padmé leaned forward to look over Leia’s shoulder.

“What is it?” She whispered.

Ben swore again and ran his hand through his hair, nearly dislodging Leia’s hold on him.

“Part of the stairway is missing,” he said. He raised his saber and squinted into the darkness, then he looked down. Pulling something from his pocket, he let it drop and counted under his breath. A faint ting sounded and he let out a sigh that sounded like relief. “It’s about seventeen or eighteen feet to the bottom from here,” he said. “I’m going to lower myself on the edge of the stair. You two climb down me and when you reach my feet, call out and then let go. I’ll use the Force to lower you gently the rest of the way.”

“What.” Leia deadpanned.

Ben sighed again. “Mother, it’s either this or I go alone from here. There is no way either you or grandmother could jump to the next in-tact step, even if I use the Force to guide you. It is too narrow, too far. Trust me,” he squeezed her hand.

Leia looked less than thrilled at the prospect of climbing her son and then dropping almost ten feet into the darkness, Force or no Force.

“Okay,” Padmé said, hoping she sounded confident.

Leia shot her an incredulous look. Padmé shrugged. “I’m not going back up and I definitely am not going to wait here in the dark while Ben goes on without us. Hop to it.”

Leia muttered under her breath and gestured to Ben for the lightsaber. Taking pity on her, Padmé swiped it from Ben’s hold before Leia could get her hand around it. They maneuvered around one another until Ben was able to lower himself over the side of the step and Leia steadied herself on Padmé as she gingerly leaned down and slid on her bottom to the edge of the step.Padmé thought she heard the words “undignified” and “just like Han” from Leia’s grumbling and stifled a laugh.

Once Leia had managed to slip herself onto Ben’s back - not without a grunt from him and a trembling squeak from her - Padmé watched as Leia slowly shimmied her way down Ben’s back. The scene was comical and Padmé wanted to comment on how spry Leia was, for an old lady. She thought better of it when Ben tossed her a consternated frown, as though he could hear what she had been thinking.

“Okay,” Leia called softly and Ben closed his eyes in concentration. A moment later, they heard a soft thud and a muffled curse from Leia. Padmé lifted the saber and was barely able to see Leia standing at the bottom of the stairwell, frowning up at them.

“All right, madam,” Ben grunted, “your turn.” His arms were shaking and Padmé felt bad for him. He made a noise of outrage when she called down to Leia to watch out and then dropped Ben’s saber to the ground below.

Ignoring his disgruntled mutterings about disrespecting his saber, she climbed onto his back and began to move downward. Reaching his boots, she let him know she was ready and let go. The sensation of a controlled fall was strange and terrifying and she vowed to never do something like that again.

Once she hit the floor, Ben let go of the stair and landed next to her with another grunt. He stayed crouched for a moment, shaking out his arms and cracking his back. He looked up at Padmé and Leia, mouth opening to speak. Before he could utter a word, Leia snapped at him.

“If you say one thing about either of us being heavier than we look, I will take it upon myself to ensure I never have grandchildren.”

Even in the red light from Ben’s saber, Padmé could see him pale.

“I would never,” he retorted and stood, snatching up his saber on the way.

“Where to now?” Padmé asked. Realizing that the room they now stood in was very tiny and only had one door, she spoke again, “Never mind. Through there I suppose.”

The door was ajar, just like the one at the top of the stairs and Ben easily pushed it open.

“What in the name of Alderaan!” Leia gasped.

Padmé shrank back and hid herself a little behind Ben before she realized that there was no creature sitting in the room, but a statue.

“Amazing,” Ben murmured, moving toward it. He smiled boyishly. “That’s an algae that glows,” he said, pointing to what appeared to be a lightsaber clutched in the statue figure’s hands. “Microbial activity is what causes the glow. There are over one-hundred million species of algae like this in the known galaxy and…”

“Ben,” Leia interrupted. Padmé was a little disappointed. Watching Ben go into academic mode was always a little fascinating. “Darling, where is Rey?”

Oh, right. Rey and Anakin should have been here. There was no other door in the room. No window or anything to provide another exit. The only thing there was the statue.

Ben furrowed his brow. “She’s here,” he said, almost to himself, “I can feel her and yet…”

Ben focussed his attention back on the statue. He turned off his lightsaber and stowed it in his holster before reaching out to touch the statue. Padmé did not miss the way Leia relaxed once the saber was out of sight.

“The hell?” Ben said loudly.

“What is it, Ben?” Padmé asked, moving closer.

“They,” the visible confusion on Ben’s face grew, “They’re inside the statue!”

Leia huffed and went to stand next to her son. “Don’t be ridiculous, Ben. How could they possibly be inside the statue? It’s smaller than I am!”

Ben rounded on her, his frustration evident. “I don’t know, mother, but I am telling you, I can feel Rey inside the statue and another Force signature is with her.”

“Hmm,” Padmé hummed and the other two turned to her. She ignored them and crouched down in front of the stone base on which the statue sat. Reaching out, she brushed her fingers through a small gathering of dirt and pebbles. As she did, she felt air slip daintily over her hand. On a hunch, she pushed the pebbles toward the statue base and smiled triumphantly when they disappeared into a small crack in the floor, just under the pillar. “Not in, below.”

Ben shuffled around to where Padmé was on the floor and slid his fingers along the base of the pillar. He turned to Padmé with a smile.

“I think you may be right,” he said. When Padmé rolled her eyes at him, his grin grew into a lop-sided smirk. “Fine,  _ grandmother _ ,” he chuckled when she snorted, “you are correct.”

“I usually am, darling,” Padmé smirked back at him.

They both looked back up at Leia. The fondness in her eyes made Padmé’s chest squeeze. She didn’t know if she would survive to see her children live this time so, if she didn’t, she was going to hold on to each of these moments with everything that she had.

“Right,” Ben said, dusting his hands off as he stood. He offered a hand out to Padmé and helped her regain her feet. “Let me just…”

Ben reached out and closed his eyes. Padmé guessed he had decided to try moving the statue with the Force, rather than physically, due to its age. Slowly, the pillar began to scrape against the stone, sliding back and revealing a small hole in the floor. Padmé leaned over it. It wasn’t nearly large enough for her to fit through, let alone Anakin. How, then, did Ben and Leia feel his and Rey’s Force signatures from it?

Ben placed a hand on her back. “It’s larger than it looks,” he said, “I have seen things like this before.”

Leia nodded. “Luke,” she said, “mentioned finding a passageway like this before. With you, Ben.”

Ben nodded. “We were on...kriff, I don’t even remember what planet at this point,” he sighed, “we were looking for the First Jedi Temple,” he laughed, “this temple...and we came across a sort of crude temple-like structure carved out of a hillside in the swamplands of the planet. When we made it inside, we found a small hole in the wall of the interior. At first, we thought that was it. Just an empty room and a hole too small for even a child to fit through.” A look entered his eye, then. Sad. Lost. “I decided to get a closer look, though, much to Luke’s chagrin. Once I got closer to it, I reached out to see if there was anything inside. As soon as I breached the hole, it grew, large enough for a human male to walk through.”

Padmé was intrigued. That sounded like magic. Ben cut his eyes to her.

“A lot of people who have no Force sensitivity view Force users as magic users,” he said, apparently reading her mind. He cringed. “Sorry, your thoughts are very loud sometimes.”

Padmé shook her head. “While I am not thrilled you can read my mind, so long as you don’t go spelunking around in it, I am fine.”

Ben cringed again and looked away from her.

“Ben?” She asked, wondering if he had, perhaps, done just that without her realizing it.

He looked down at his feet, hands clasped in front of him, looking for all the galaxy like a small boy about to be taken to task.

“Rey,” he whispered, “the first time we met I...I invaded her mind, I…” he swallowed, unable to finish.

At first, Padmé was appalled but her good sense overrode her initial reaction to scold.

“It would seem Rey may have forgiven you for that,” Leia said, voicing what Padmé was thinking.

Ben jerked his head in semblance of a nod.

Deciding to move away from what was clearly unhappy territory for Ben, Padmé spoke up.

“So do we just,” she waved at the hole, “jump?”

Leia made a strangled noise of disbelief.

“Uh, no,” Ben said, brow crinkled. He stepped closer to the hole and leaned down. He reached out and, as his hand passed through, the hole grew, revealing another set of stairs. “Hmm, I guess we go down again.”

Leia huffed. “Really, really, getting too old for this.”

Padmé laughed. She turned to Ben, grinning. “Shall we?”

Ben grinned back. “Let’s.”

Leia huffed again. “Like having two of Han,” she groused and followed her son and mother into the darkness below.


	16. Chapter 16: A Surprise! Rose Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so sorry it took so long to update. I was pretty sick, thank you food poisoning, for the past several days. I hope this will hold you over until the last chapter. Yes, the last...for this story in the series. There are two others after this one. The next one does not feature anyone from the ST (unless spoken about) but I hope you read it. It won't be huge but what happens is the set-up for part 3 which is where Ben and Rey come in.
> 
> Enjoy!

**Naboo; 34 ABY**

Rose moved back and behind the pillar, holding her blaster at the ready. She watched as Finn and Rey seemed to come to some sort of understanding through nods and small smiles. She felt some semblance of relief at the exchange, relief that grew when Rey stopped to hug Finn while she and Anakin Skywalker ran to the First Order ship docked on the other side of the hanger. Ren’s ship, Rose supposed and somehow, that seemed fitting.

She glanced over at Jess and nodded to the other woman and then toward the boys. Together, they leapt into the fray, blasters firing furiously. Rose managed to catch a few of the Stormtroopers off guard and had taken down four by the time Hux turned his attention toward her. She grinned at him.

“How’s the hand?” She shouted.

Hux’s eyes grew wide and then narrowed in fury.

“Kill them!” He screamed, face turning a most unflattering shade of purple.

Rose giggled, a little maniacally, and ran past where Finn and Jess were blasting away at Troopers to where Poe was engaged in a five-against-one shoot out. She took town one of his attackers and then ducked down when a few shots made their way toward her.

“I’m going to go around and behind them,” she whisper-shouted to Poe.

He nodded at her, not taking his eyes off of his four pursuers. Rose moved away, firing off a few blasts in the direction of the First Order goons as she ran. Once outside the hanger, she crept along the wall, keeping her eyes peeled for more Stormtroopers. She was so busy looking for white, she completely missed the black.

"Well, well, if it isn't my favorite little Resistance scum."

Rose stopped. Hux stood before her, blaster raised and pointed directly at her head. She felt her breath stop for a moment and her mind raced. She couldn’t outrun him and something told her his aim was much more reliable than any Stormtrooper. The smug grin he shot her had her narrowing her eyes. Rose slid one foot back, prepared to try to run at him and catch him off guard. She launched herself forward and her own grin appeared as his eyes widened. Amazingly, he didn’t try to shoot her; instead, he dropped the blaster and reached out to catch her and they both fell to the ground.

Rose sat up, straddling Hux’s stomach and they stared at one another, then she aimed her blaster at Hux. Their eyes remained locked and Rose felt a moment of remorse, a moment of bewildering regret and then her finger twitched toward the trigger.

“What?” Hux breathed, suddenly looking afraid.

Rose, at first, believed he feared her shooting him but he wasn’t looking at the blaster. He was looking at her legs. Rose glanced down and then screamed. Her legs, and his, were slowly fading away. Her eyes shot back to Hux’s and he sat up as best he could, reaching for her.

“What is this?” Rose asked him, voice trembling.

“I...I don’t know,” Hux’s arms slid around her, apparently seeking or offering some sort of comfort. Rose dropped her blaster and returned the embrace, hanging on as her mind began to fog over. She took in a deep, shaky breath.

“Shhh,” Hux murmured into her ear, “It’s, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

Rose could tell he believed it and latched on to that surety. As soon as she did, she believed it too. She could feel it, with every fiber of her being. She knew that it must be the Force. It had to be. Nothing else in the universe could feel so intimate and so complete. Rey had described it that way and Rose finally understood what she meant. Flashes of a lifetime, her lifetime and yet not, passed through her mind. Visions of one person, in particular, made her wonder just what she was seeing, and yet, she knew.

With the last of her, Rose looked into Hux’s eyes and said, “I suppose we’ll be seeing one another again someday.”

“Someday,” Hux agreed and then, they were gone.


	17. Chapter 17: The Lesson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so sorry it took so long to get this up. It has been...a really bad couple of weeks. One of my aunts passed away and my mom is taking it really hard. She was on up there in years and was sick for a long time but the past few months she just deteriorated so quickly...
> 
> Any way, that is what I have been trying to deal with. I am okay, just very tired.
> 
> On to happier things, I hope this was worth waiting for. I hope that it sets up the next story in the series in a way that makes you want to read! Hint, hint. And, most of all, I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> Thank you, to everyone, who has read, kudo'd or commented or any combination of the three. I am so grateful to you all!

**Ahch-To; 34 ABY**

_ The door cracked open and they pushed it into the room beyond, watching it swing wide. _

_ “What in the Force?” Anakin breathed. _

_ Next to him, Rey sucked in a lung-ful of air, obviously as shocked and disturbed as he was. _

_ There, in the small circular chamber, sat a being, motionless and wielding a lightsaber, the ignited blade glowing eerily in the otherwise empty room. _

Rey sighed in relief, her body relaxing, as her vision adjusted to the darkness and she was able to understand what she was seeing.

“A statue,” she said and felt the Force swirling around Anakin settle. He had been more nervous than her at the thought of coming upon an unknown being, locked in a hidden cavern beneath an ancient temple.

Now that she thought about it, it was a little absurd that she had thought she was looking upon a living being, considering the circumstances.

“Hmm,” Anakin stepped closer to the statue, leaning in and sniffing at the saber. “Bioluminescent algae,” he said, which explained why the stone carving of the saber was glowing.

Rey hummed and slowly glanced around the small chamber. There was nothing in it, save the statue. She kneeled, hoping to see some sort of inscription or symbol in the base on which the statue sat and growled in frustration at the smooth stone. She pulled out the text once more, hoping there would be something in it about the inner-mountain chamber. She flipped through the pages distractedly listening to Ani as he muttered under his breath while circling the statue. Upon flipping another page, a small piece of parchment slipped from the book and fluttered to the floor. Rey glanced down and reached out to grab it, only to blink in surprise when it slid underneath the statue, as though suck in by an unknown force. 

_ ‘Or,’ _ she thought wryly,  _ ‘perhaps a known Force.’ _

She slid the text back in her bag and held her hand to the base of the statue.

“Air,” she whispered, then louder to catch Anakin’s attention, “There’s air, it’s moving.”

Anakin crouched next to her and held his hand near the base in the same way Rey was. He glanced at her, smirk tugging at his lips.

“Shall we?” He asked.

Rey grinned back and nodded. They both stood and closed their eyes, concentrating. It took only a moment to move the statue back and when Rey opened her eyes, she frowned in confusion.

“What now?” She asked. “There’s no way either of us will be able to fit through that tiny little hole.” She gestured at the dark space in the floor.

“I’m not sure,” Anakin said, then went back to pacing and muttering, glancing at the hole often.

Rey rolled her eyes. She had thought Anakin more like her, quick to act and less likely to think things through before doing so. Now, though, he was acting more like Ben, who seemed to have to contemplate everything before deciding what course of action to take.

With the exception of his actions against Snoke in the Throne Room. That, Rey thought, had been nothing but pure instinct on Ben’s part.

She knelt again and shuffled closer to the hole. As soon as her hand hovered over it, it grew and another set of narrow, spiraling stairs appeared, tightly enclosed by stone walls all around them. When she glanced up to give Anakin her own little smirk, she found him looking at her with pride. Tears pricked her eyes and she blinked them back, looking away.

“It appears we move on,” Ani said softly.

“Right.” Rey snapped her head in a sharp nod and stood. “After you,” she said, gesturing toward the stairs.

Anakin rolled his eyes at her but moved forward and breached the first step. Rey followed but as soon as she moved low enough that the top of the hole was just over her head, she heard the grind of stone against stone and looked up to watch the statue move back into place. She shuddered.

“Ani,” she whispered, “We’d better be able to find our way out of here. I think that was an entrance-only.” She fumbled to pull her saber from her belt. “Ani?” She called, finally getting the saber in hand. She flicked the switch, calling out one more time. “Anakin?”

Nothing.

The saber did not ignite and Anakin didn’t answer her. Suddenly afraid, Rey took a deep breath and forced herself to relax. She reached out into the Force but she could not feel Anakin. Air caught in her chest and she flung out her free hand to steady herself against the wall of the stairwell. Her hand met with nothing and she stumbled.

And she fell.

Rey fell for what felt like forever. Being unable to see, unable to grasp hold of anything, had her fear climbing into terror and she squeezed her eyes shut, barely keeping her grown tears at bay.

_ “But I don’t want to leave! I like it here! Pi’iro is here and she’s my best friend!” _

Rey’s eyes snapped open and she gasped. Before her was an image of herself, barely 6 years old. Little Rey was crying, holding onto the skirts of a woman whose face Rey had been desperately trying to remember for over a decade.

_ “We have to go, Little Light,”  _ the woman said, turning away and Rey realized that her mother had been trying not to cry that day.

Rey took in a shuddering breath.

She remembered now. For so long, all she had been able to think about was being left on Jakku in the hands of Unkar Plutt. But now, she remembered. They had moved often, Rey and her parents, from one out-of-the-way planet to the next. They had been on that planet, her friend Pi’iro’s planet, for nearly a month before her mother had told her they were leaving once more. Her friend, part of a tribe of Selonian refugees, had been angry at Rey when she had told her she was leaving. It had broken Rey’s heart but, then, she was used to losing friends by that point. She did not blame her parents, though she had as a child. Now that she was starting to remember, Rey realized that they had been afraid.

Of what, she did not know but the answers started to come soon enough.

_ “We can’t keep doing this to her, Rori,” _ Rey’s mother said, wringing her hands in consternation.  _ “Why should she continue to suffer the consequences of my mother’s actions from over twenty years ago?” _

_ “Keirra, my love,” _ Rey’s father took Keirra into his arms,  _ “Your mother was a hero and those that continue to serve the dead emperor know that. They fear it.” _ He looked into his wife’s eyes.  _ “We will find safety. The empire has been dead for years now and those who continue to support it are dwindling in number. I think we need to seek out Organa. If we can get to her, perhaps she can help us protect Rey.” _

Rey heard the words. They flowed through her and she did acknowledge them. She could only focus, however, on one thing. Her parents had not hated her. They had loved her.

They had  _ loved  _ her.

The tears were coming faster now as the scene changed. They were on a planet of waterfalls and they were running. Rey was tucked against her father’s body and she could almost smell the familiar scent of parchment and binding glue.

Her father had been a librarian. She recalled now, that warm, comforting smell. Before they had started running, he had been a librarian and Rey had spent her days in the glorious and lavish halls of the library he oversaw. Yes. Pi’iro’s planet had been the ninth in a span of less than six months. Before that, though, Rey’s family had had a home. They had lived near the library, in a small apartment in a larger, grander building that also housed the library, an indoor garden and a large chamber often used…

Rey’s body seized in shock.

A large chamber, often used by the Queen to conduct meetings with visiting dignitaries.

Kriff. Oh Kriff!

Now she knew! She knew why it had all seemed so familiar, yet like a dream. She knew why the people had sounded so much like her.

Rey was from Naboo.

_ “Rori! Rey!” _

Her mother’s screams jolted her attention back to the scene playing out in the air in front of her. The sensation of falling still weighed her down and she began to feel sick from the constant drag.

Before her, she watched her father fall, the burn of blaster fire scorching his shirt. Little Rey had crawled out of his arms and was sitting on her knees next to him, crying out “dadda, dadda!” Rey began to sob. She knew what came next and she couldn’t bear to watch as, for a second time, her mother was hit with the but end of a weapon and went crashing to the forest floor, never to move again.

They had died on that planet of water and swamp. They had died trying to protect her from whomever was hunting them.

But then...if they had died there, how had she gotten to Jakku and who had she cried out for as they were leaving her there?

Still mired in grief, Rey pushed through the memories. After her mother had fallen, Rey had heard her father’s last words to her, slurred and slow.  _ “Run, Little Light. Run.” _

Rey had done just that. She had been sobbing and hurting and her father’s dirty sweat had still been on her hands from where she had tried to roll him over but she had run. She had gotten away from her pursuers or, perhaps, they simply had not cared about her. Perhaps killing her parents had been all they wanted. Either way, Rey had made it miles away before she had realized she wasn’t being followed. She had wandered through the swamplands for days, cold and hungry and scared. Finally, though, she had found an outpost. Several ships sat at the docks, being loaded with goods and unloaded with what looked like slaves. Rey had snuck aboard a smaller vessel and had hid.

She had been found within a few hours of taking off and the human male piloting the ship had dragged her off of it at the next available planet: Jakku. He had sold her to Plutt and had taken off.

Rey hadn’t been crying out for her parents. She had simply been crying out for the pilot of that ship not to leave her with the cruel being yanking on her arm.

Rey closed her eyes, folding in on herself. Briefly, she was struck with the thought that what Ben had seen the night they touched hands hadn’t been what he had believed it to be. He had thought the ship’s pilot was her father. The realization brought her no comfort.

Gradually, Rey’s tears stopped and she realized that her fall had stopped as well. A small amount of light above her grew until she could see, though there wasn’t much to be seen. She stood, carefully, mindful of her uneasy stomach. Still clutching Anakin’s saber in her hand, Rey called out.

“Is anyone there?”

“We are always here,” was the reply she received, not in one voice but what sounded like the melding of several.

Rey took a step back as a being appeared before her. It looked exactly like the Prime Jedi.

“We are and we are not” the being said and, at Rey’s scrunched brow, explained, “We were, we are, we shall be the Prime Jedi and yet we weren’t, we aren’t and we shall never be the Prime Jedi.”

“What?” Rey felt her head begin to pound.

The being moved closer and Rey realized it was much larger than she had anticipated. Based on the statue in the chamber, she had thought the being would be small, shorter than her certainly. Instead, it stood a good half a body length taller than her and she had to look up to meet it’s pale silver eyes.

“Prime we are,” it said, “Jedi we are not.”

Ah.

“So,” Rey hedged, “It would be more accurate to call you the Prime Force User?”

“Yes,” the being said, “and no.”

Rey was growing frustrated.

“We are the Prime,” the being said again.

Rey worked her mouth, then stopped when she realized what she had done. Ben’s face flashed behind her eyes and she realized she had copied his habit without even thinking about it. For some reason, it made her flush.

“The Prime?” Rey asked, hoping to coax the being in front of her into more of an explanation.

“The Prime,” it confirmed and said nothing more.

Rey huffed.

“The Prime what?” She asked, irritated. “Not the Prime Jedi, not the Prime Force User? So what, then?”

“We are the Prime.”

Rey closed her eyes and counted down from ten, breathing deeply to calm herself. As she did, she knew.

“You are the Prime,” she said, opening her eyes. “You are the Force.”

“We are the Prime,” it said, “We are the Force.”

Rey looked closer and began to understand. It was like looking at something in the dark. If you looked at it from the corner of your eye, you could see it rather clearly but trying to look at it head on and it began to blend in with the darkness around it. The being before her was not corporeal. It was not real. It was a manifestation.

“Okay,” Rey muttered, looking down at her feet. She worked her mouth again. Then she remembered, “Where is Anakin? He was with me when we stepped into the stairwell.”

The Prime moved away from her, turning and raising one wispy arm to point at something in the distance.

Rey squinted against the dark. She could barely make out the figure of Anakin and he appeared to be talking to another being, another manifestation of the Force.

“Yes,” the Prime said and turned back to her. “Anakin Skywalker’s lesson is Anakin Skywalker’s lesson. Your lesson is your lesson.”

Rey tilted her head while thinking about everything she had learned during her fall. Her parents had died protecting her. Or, perhaps, they had died running from someone or someones who wanted  _ them  _ dead. In their minds, though, their only concern would have been protecting Rey, no matter if she was the one in danger or not. She knew that without a doubt. Why though? Why were they being hunted?

_ “Why should she continue to suffer the consequences of my mother’s actions from over twenty years ago?” _

Rey’s mother had blamed her own mother for whatever it was they were running from. Rey’s father had called her mother’s mother a hero. Whatever it was that caused it, the events for what happened to Rey’s parents had been set in motion before Rey was even born.

“My parents were always going to die,” Rey whispered, heart breaking.

“Yes,” came the response. The emotionless cadence made Rey angry.

“Why?” She shouted. “Why did they have to die? You’ve sent me through time, hopping all over the place, so why can’t you send me back to save them?”

“They live, you die,” the Prime responded.

Rey’s heart seized.

“Fine then,” she lifted her chin, daring the Prime to argue with her on it. “I’ll go back, save them and I will take their place. I’ll die instead.”

“You die,” the being reached out and waved a hand. Ben’s image flared before her. He was kneeling in front of the pool in the Temple on Ahch-To. “He dies.”

Rey spun back to face the Prime.

“What?” She breathed. “How? What do you mean if I die he dies? What is that?”

The Prime waved his hand again and Rey watched as the image changed. Rey and Kylo Ren were fighting in the forest on Starkiller, their sabers locked and they were staring into one another’s eyes. The image bled into the two of them sitting with a fire between them, hands outstretched and touching. That image melted into the pair standing back to back, sabers slashing at red-clad enemies, their motions and reactions perfectly timed with one another.

“Balance,” said the Prime, “Dyad.”

“Dyad?” Rey scrunched her brow.

“Two that are one.”

The image changed once more to a silent, unmoving figure of a very young Ben and an orb grew behind him. As Ben aged, the orb grew and grew and grew until it nearly drowned Ben. He looked around eight or so when suddenly, the orb cracked. Light and darkness began to spill from within and the image of Ben collapsed to its knees. Rey cried out, reaching for him. In that moment, a new figure appeared next to Ben. A baby, small and swaddled in pale cream cloth. The crack in the orb began to heal and Rey watched in awe as it contracted and then became two, slightly smaller, orbs. One, dark yet heavily shot through with light, drifted to hover behind Ben. The other, light shot through with darkness, drifted to hover behind the baby.

“That’s me,” Rey said, shocked but sure.

“Too little.” the Prime said and Rey was almost certain its tone had softened, ever so slightly. “Anakin had been given too little and so he failed. Too much. Ben had been given too much and so it needed another vessel.”

Now Rey understood. Anakin was supposed to be the one to bring Balance but the Force had given him too little power with which to do so. In spite of how powerful he was, it hadn’t been enough. In seeking to correct its mistake, the Force gave Ben more power but it had been too much for one being alone to carry and had nearly destroyed him. The Force had split that power between them, then, so that they could carry it together.

“A Dyad,” Rey said on a whisper.

“A Dyad,” the Prime confirmed. “You die, he dies.”

Rey closed her eyes, feeling defeated. She couldn’t save her parents. She knew that she could ask why there had to be any death at all but she had a feeling the Prime would have an answer for her.

She was right and hadn’t even had to put voice to the question.

“Life and death,” it said, “power and powerlessness. Light and dark. All must exist. All must be.”

Rey hated it.

“Love and hatred, “the Prime said, as though trying to assure her that her feelings were valid.

Rey almost felt like punching the Prime in its non-corporeal face.

“Violence and creation.”

“Okay, enough,” Rey growled. “I get it. My parents had to die. I had to end up on Jakku, slaving away for Plutt before meeting Finn and escaping on the Falcon. It’s all destiny.”

“No,” the Prime said. “There is no destiny. There is only Us and what must happen to ensure what We desire to Be.”

Rey blinked up at the being.

“You mean,” she started slowly, wondering, “even though my parents died, nothing that came after had to happen?” She considered it, then amended, “except for meeting Ben?”

“Your lesson is learned, Rey of Naboo.”

*****

“I see, then I was right,” Anakin nodded to himself. “I cannot bring balance on my own but I can create the circumstances under which Ben and Rey achieve balance. The prophecy that Qui-Gon heard may have been about me but that doesn’t mean that it only had one meaning.”

“Yes,” said the Prime and Anakin felt relieved.

“I have an idea of how to do it, thanks to Rey mostly, but what if it doesn’t work?” He asked.

The being, the Prime, was quiet for a moment and Anakin wondered what he had said to cause such a reaction in it. For the entire time they had been speaking, the Prime had had an answer or response for everything, even things that Anakin didn’t voice aloud. It took several minutes of silence before Anakin realized that the Prime was waiting for him to reach the answer himself. Huffing, Anakin closed his eyes and reached out to the Force. The energy of the being in front of him swirled around him like a soft summer breeze that quickly turned into a battering winter’s squall. He felt the anger and fear of his youth scraping against his mind. The love and joy he held for Padmé and even Obi-Wan buoyed his heart. His exhilaration in battle and his wonder at achieving new heights with the Force. It all washed over him. And, in the center of it all, he felt it.

“The Force,” Anakin said, nearly rolling his eyes at himself, “I need to trust the Force, let it guide me, even when I might be inclined to do the opposite of what it tells me.”

“Yes.”

Anakin wondered if the Prime had conversations often with Force sensitive beings, as it seemed to be reluctant to use more words than absolutely necessary.

“Okay,” Anakin nodded to himself, “Okay. I know what I have to do. I should have known from the beginning that being a Jedi was not my path. From the moment I was asked to leave my mother behind I should have known. I understand now. I am not a Jedi.”

“Then your lesson is learned, Anakin Skywalker.”

*****

It wasn’t the darkness that worried her. Leia was used to such things. Her travels with Luke and Han and Chewy when she was younger had left her in more than one precarious situation. No, it wasn’t the darkness. It wasn’t even the sensation of falling. What worried Leia was that she could no longer feel Ben, or her mother, with her.

_ “Mama!” _

Leia whipped her head toward the light that had suddenly appeared next to her. Ben, only about three years old, was running toward her, laughing. Leia’s heart clenched. She had failed him. She had failed her sweet boy. She had ignored him in favor of a galaxy in turmoil.

Leia batted away the old justifications. ‘Who else could rebuild the Republic?’ ‘The galaxy needed her!’ ‘There is so much to do, so many people to save!’

It didn’t matter. Ben mattered and she had set him aside and had somehow convinced herself it had been for the greater good.

“I was wrong,” she said, firmly. “And if I could do it all again…”

“What would you do?”

Leia gasped. She had not realized that she had stopped falling or that she was no longer alone.

“What would you do, Leia Organa?”

The site of the being before her did not startle her and she had a feeling that whatever it was, she needed to give them an answer. An honest one.

“I would do what I should have done the first time,” she said, head held high, “I would love my son and I would make sure, damned sure, that he knew it.”

“Then your lesson is learned, Leia Organa.”

*****

Padmé watched her family as they spoke with copies of the being standing next to her.

“She is quite lovely,” Padmé whispered, watching Rey question her parents’ deaths. “And quite fierce. I can see why Ben is so enamoured.”

“A Dyad,” the Prime responded.

“Yes,” Padmé chuckled, “So you said.”

She turned to it.

“And what is my lesson? You have not asked me anything, you have not shown me any memories. Why am I here?”

The being pointed to Anakin. Slowly, he moved his arm until he was pointing to Leia and then to Ben and Rey. Padmé pondered over this. Her lesson was in them? Was it in their lessons or, perhaps, was her lesson supposed to come from the conclusions that they arrived at? She looked closer, studying each one with great care. When she got to Rey, her confusion gew. Anakin, Leia and Ben made sense. They were her family. She knew that Rey, without a doubt, was not related to her. And yet…

“She looks somewhat familiar,” Padmé said and glanced back at her companion.

“Yes,” it replied.

Padmé was amused. She was well aware of the frustration of all of the Force-users with the Prime’s manner of speaking. Padmé, however, liked it. Short, sweet and no unnecessary padding.

“I don’t know her, though, that would be impossible,” Padmé continued, letting her train of thought flow. “Family resemblance, then? Perhaps I knew a relative?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, okay then, that’s a start.” She let her thoughts wonder a moment longer, not pushing them any certain way, just following the freely flowing trail. “It doesn’t really matter all that much to my lesson, though, does it? The fact that she is connected to Ben is enough.”

“Dyad,” the Prime pointed once again at Ben and Rey. “Balance.” It gestured to all of them. “And you.” It motioned toward her.

Padmé was not Force sensitive but she also wasn’t stupid. Still, she was starting to grow a little frustrated with not understanding.

“What?” She huffed out a laugh, “They are the pieces to the Balance puzzle and I am the glue?”

The Prime tilted its head at her, as though urging her to continue down that particular train of thought.

Padmé looked again at her family and Rey. All powerful in the Force, even Leia despite her lack of training. All fierce and battle-ready warriors. All extremely emotionally driven people.

“Balance.” Padmé whispered. “I am not Force-sensitive. I am capable in battle and warrior yes but I strive for diplomacy first and leave physical confrontation as the last resort. I am emotional but I am more likely to think with my head than my heart.” She glanced up at the Prime, smirking. “I am their opposite. Their Balance.”

“Yes,” its reply made her smile, then frown, “and no.”

She considered it a moment longer and the thought struck her.

“I am  _ Anakin’s  _ Balance,” she said, “and Han is Leia’s. Though they are very similar, their differences are enough to bring her Balance. Luke’s Balance is...what?”

“Lost,” replied the Prime, “before she was even found.”

Padmé’s heart broke at that. Her son had had someone and had never even known it. From the way the Prime had said it, Padmé thought she must have died before they ever met.

“And Ben and Rey, they aren’t just a Dyad, they are opposites to one another as well. Balance.” She said, softly.

“Yes.”

“So my lesson is that I am meant to Balance Anakin, just as Ben was trying to teach me,” she said, “and in doing so, I will help him build the foundation that Ben and Rey will use to Balance the Force.”

“Your lesson is learned, Padmé Naberrie.”

*****

Ben watched himself reach out for the saber on the small table that had been next to his sleeping pallet. He remembered the pain that had coursed through him at seeing Luke like that. More than anything, he had been in pain. Fear, anger, confusion, it had all been there too but nothing,  _ nothing _ , had come close to the pain. He wanted to look away but forced himself not to.

“I made a mistake that night,” Ben acknowledged, “many mistakes.”

“The mistakes were not all yours, Ben Solo,” the Prime responded.

For some reason, that frustrated Ben more than if the Prime had simply agreed with him.

“No, but I could have changed things if I had responded differently.” He countered.

“Yes,” said the Prime, “and no.”

Ben growled, clenching his hands into fists by his sides.

“Explain,” he barked. He cringed. One did not simply give orders to the physical manifestation of the Force.

“Whatever decisions you made,” the Prime said, seemingly uncaring of Ben’s tone or attitude, “the decisions of others would have negated them and under Snoke, you still would have found yourself.”

Ben sighed. The Hope that had been growing in him, day by day, from the moment he had met Padmé, was beginning to dwindle.

“Decisions made long before your birth assured that outcome, Ben Solo.”

Ben almost wondered if the Prime was attempting to console him with that.

“So what was I supposed to do?” He nearly begged. “If I could not stop my own fall to the Darkness, what was I supposed to do?”

The Prime looked directly at him and Ben felt wholly unnerved.

“The failure is Ours,” it said and Ben shuddered at the coldness that suffused him with those words, “You fell to the Darkness and We did not do enough to stop it.”

Ben felt his brow contract. The Prime, seemingly realizing his confusion, gestured to a new scene in the space before them. The image of him as a boy and a baby with the Force around them changed. The baby grew older and Ben recognized Rey in her.

“We waited too long but she had to be the one,” the Prime said.

Ben tried to understand. If Rey had to be the vessel to take part of the soul that they shared, how could the Force be at fault?

“We gifted her parents, as we gift all parents, but We waited too long.”

Oh.

“So, if you had made it so that Rey was born earlier, had taken part of our shared soul earlier…”

“Not soul,” the Prime interrupted, “Force. Power. Ability. Like-souls able to bear the weight of such power. Mirror images.”

Ben thought he understood. He and Rey did not share a soul, they shared Force ability. Their souls were uniquely adept to feeling, wielding and being one with the enormous amount of power that the Force had granted them.

“I see,” he worked his mouth, “I think.”

“It is enough,” the Prime replied and Ben knew he would have to be satisfied with the conclusions he had drawn. He had a feeling he would never really be able to understand just what he and Rey were, not completely.

“And that is your lesson.” The Prime said.

“What?” Ben was about to ask what the Prime meant, but then he knew. He chuckled and closed his eyes. “Sometimes, I need to simply accept what the Force wills without trying to understand the whys and hows completely. There are some things that will simply always be beyond my comprehension. I need to trust the Force.”

“Your lesson is learned, Ben Solo.”

*****

When Rey opened her eyes again, Ben was standing with her and the Prime.

“Ben!” She ran at him, throwing herself in his arms.

“Rey,” he breathed into her ear, sounding for all the galaxy like he had just met his end and had been given a reprieve. The thought scared her. She pulled back to look at him.

“Are you alright?” She asked quietly, reaching up to brush a stray lock of hair back from his face.

He smiled at her, whole and real.

“I am now.”

Still holding her in his arms, Ben turned to the Prime. Rey settled her gazed on it as well.

“What do we do now?” Rey asked before Ben could speak.

“Now,” the Prime said, “You wait. You wait for them to do as must be done.” It gestured at Anakin and Padmé.

A small tremor of fear laced through her when she realized what the Prime was implying. They were not going back. They would never again be back in their time. Not really. Not as it was. What of her friends? What of Ben? Surely the Prime, the Force, wouldn’t separate them! 

Ben pulled Rey closer and she looked up into his eyes.

“I’ll come back for you, sweetheart. I promise.” He said and then he covered her mouth with his own.

The last thing Rey knew before the blanket of darkness took her was the feel of Ben’s love for her against her lips.

*****

“What happens now?” Leia asked, eyes never leaving the image of her son standing with Rey.

“Now,” the Prime said, “You wait.”

Leia nodded and she closed her eyes. She would wait for eternity for the chance to be with her family again, for the chance to make things right.

“Thank you,” she whispered and felt a calming darkness take her away.

*****

“Is it my turn?” Padmé asked, watching her daughter disappear.

“Yes,” said the Prime, “and no.”

Padmé sent it a look of amused consternation.

“You will return,” it tried to explain and she nodded to show she understood.

“Well then, shall we?” She asked just as everything began to fade and she slipped into the dark.

*****

“They aren’t dead?” Anakin asked.

“No,” the Prime responded, “their souls are waiting.”

Anakin nodded.

“Okay, then I guess it’s up to me to make sure it's worth that wait when they come back.”

“Indeed,” said the Prime and Anakin turned to balk at it, absolutely sure he heard a trace of humor in the normally emotionless voice.

Before he could remark on it, he was knocked off of his feet and lost consciousness.

*****

“Ani!”

Padmé’s voice rang in his ears, pulling him from the comforting sleep he had been in. All too soon, that comfort disappeared and his head began to ache. Sounds of shouting and blaster fire filtered through to him and he opened his eyes.

They were back.

All around him, people were running. The ground below him was a mess of debri and the ship he and Padmé had been heading toward before the explosion was torn apart along the hull.

“Ani!” Padmé skidded to a stop beside him and reached down to offer him a hand up. “I woke up just before you. I think there was an attack.”

Anakin nodded and, together, they joined the fray. Fighting the Separatists that had dared to attack Naboo had kept them both from being able to process everything that had happened but Anakin welcomed the calm that battle somehow brought him.

_ “We’re doers, you and me,”  _ Rey had said to him once,  _ “We act and that calms us. It’s when we have to think things through that we get anxious.” _

Anakin smirked to himself. She hadn’t been wrong.

Hours later, after the fighting and after Obi-Wan had shown up to get a debrief and check in on his friends, Anakin was ready to work through it.

“Are you both okay?” Obi-Wan asked once they were all patched up and sitting in one of the lounges in the palace.

Anakin and Padmé glanced at one another and Obi-Wan looked between them, his brow furrowing. He stood and began pacing. He came to a stop, shoulders tense, and crossed his arms over his chest. With a great, heaving, put-upon sigh, said, “Okay, what sort of trouble did you get into this time?”

Anakin grinned at him.

“It all started with a little bit of time-travel,” he said, smirk growing as Obi-Wan’s expression dropped into bewilderment. “and confronting the future.”

Anakin and Padmé watched as he ran a hand over his face. He regarded them with consternation, hand over his mouth as he looked them over.

“Oh, this ought to be good,” Obi-Wan muttered sardonically.


End file.
